Bye Bye Amazon Delivery Guy? Amazon Looks to Team With Zoox
It may just be that you will soon have to walk out to a driverless car to grab your Amazon.com (AMZN) - Get Amazon.com Inc. Report package.
Amazon reportedly is in discussions to acquire driverless-vehicle startup Zoox in a bid to both accelerate its automation efforts in the so-dubbed “last mile” of package delivery and also cut one of its persistently higher costs: the delivery person.
According to reports, Amazon is in late-stage discussions with Zoox, an autonomous-vehicle startup that has been working on perfecting driverless vehicle automation since 2018.
Amazon reportedly is in advanced talks to buy Zoox for less than the company’s 2018 $3.2 billion valuation, according to reports.
Foster City, Calif.-based Zoox, which claims to be working on “driving autonomously in ways that no one else has shown,” is proving to be an attractive target to Amazon and other companies looking to cut both the time and cost it takes to move good the last mile - a term used to describe the final delivery stretch.
Paying drivers to deliver packages remains one of Amazon’s bigger costs. CEO Jeff Bezos has for years been looking to cut those costs - by creating Amazon’s own delivery fleet, by looking into drone and even robot delivery, and now by potentially acquiring driverless car companies like Zoox.
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