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Amazon's EV robotaxi service Zook is set to arrive in Houston. Sep 7, 2026, 8:49 am Amazon-owned electric robotaxi ride-hailing service Zoox is zooming into Houston in September. Initially, self-driving retrofitted SUVs with safety drivers on board will serve downtown Houston, centrally located tourist hotspots, and certain residential neighborhoods. The SUVs will test Houston roads before Zoox rolls out autonomous robotaxis, the company says. Zoox takes Houston for a test drive. At the outset, Zoox says, a limited number of vehicles will be driven by people to gather data about Houston roads. "This helps create a detailed picture of each street, from road geometry to traffic lights," the company says. "Once we have mapped out an area, we will test autonomous driving capabilities. Safety and operational readiness govern the pace of our rollout." Zoox says its robotaxi differs from vehicles operated by other ride-hailing services. The all-electric robotaxi "is purpose-built for autonomous ride-hailing and designed for riders from day one," the company says. "It has no traditional driving controls and instead has carriage-style seating, sliding glass doors, and features that let the rider personalize their journey." To help manage the fleet, Zoox plans to open a depot in Houston for vehicle charging and maintenance, a representative says via email. Along with Houston, Zoox is launching this month in San Diego. The ride-hailing service already operates in Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Zoox breaks into "sprawling" Houston market. Zoox describes Houston as its "most sprawling market to date." "Driving here means navigating complex service-road networks, unique merging scenarios, and challenging environmental conditions, including severe heat, heavy rain, and urban flooding," the company says. "It's a rigorous test of our technology across geography and terrain." Zoox will join two other autonomous ride-hailing services in Houston: * Waymo began rolling in Houston in February. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, owns Waymo. * Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla began offering robotaxi services earlier this year. A third Zoox competitor is arriving within the next year. A partnership comprising rideshare provider Uber, EV manufacturer Lucid, and autonomous technology company Nuro plans to launch a robotaxi service in Houston by mid-2027. fresh funding Must-attend meetings EnergyCapitalHTX emails are awesome. A View from HETI. The View from HETI coming soon Sep 4, 2026, 9:00 am Crews have broken ground on the forthcoming 347-megawatt direct-current SunRoper Solar project in Wharton County, Texas, that will add capacity to the ERCOT grid. The solar project, which is slated to begin operations in December 2027, will provide electricity to an undisclosed Fortune 100 company under a long-term power purchase agreement, according to a news release. San Antonio's OCI Energy and Israel's Arava Power are developing the project. It's being financed by ING Capital and constructed by Louisiana-based WHC Inc. The project received $394 million in construction financing in February. "SunRoper demonstrates how strategic partnerships can help meet Texas' growing demand for electricity through investments in critical energy infrastructure," Sabah Bayatli, president of OCI Energy, said in the release. Project partners, landowners and company executives attended a groundbreaking event for SunRoper on Sept. 1 at the site outside of the Houston metro area. The companies say they are advancing this energy project to strengthen grid reliability and to help deliver affordable power to one of the highest-demand areas in the state. "WHC is proud to serve as EPC contractor on the SunRoper Solar project, bringing our construction expertise to bear on a facility that will deliver meaningful power to the Houston region," Randel Badeaux, president of power North America for WHC, added in the news release. "This groundbreaking reflects months of careful planning and coordination with OCI Energy, Arava Power and our project partners, and we look forward to executing a safe, high-quality build through to completion in 2027." OCI Energy currently operates several utility-scale solar and battery energy storage system projects outside of the San Antonio area, and has five other projects under construction outside of San Antonio and Waco, with more than 30 under development in Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Colorado and Alberta, Canada. The company also has existing projects in New Jersey and Georgia.

Zoox launches first airport robotaxi service in major milestone. Published September 6, 2026 9:57 AM EDT The brief. * * Zoox is launching its first airport transportation service, offering driverless rides between Harry Reid International Airport and the Las Vegas Strip. * The four-passenger robotaxis feature carriage-style seating, luggage space and lights and audio signals to help riders locate them. * The service follows a temporary federal exemption for Zoox vehicles, which do not have traditional controls such as steering wheels and pedals. Zoox announced Thursday that its driverless robotaxis will begin carrying passengers to and from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, launching the company's first airport transportation service. What they're saying: The Amazon-owned company told FOX Business that passengers can book rides between Harry Reid International Airport and the Las Vegas Strip starting Thursday. "Bringing autonomous transportation to one of the country's busiest airports requires true partnership, and we are grateful to the Clark County Department of Aviation and the state of Nevada for their continued support as we help shape the future of mobility," said Ron Thaniel, Zoox's senior director of policy and regulatory affairs. Waymo temporarily halted its service in San Francisco on Saturday, December 20, after a widespread power outage hit the city and caused the self-driving taxis to stall. Video @brahmsstan via Storyful Dig deeper: Zoox will collect and drop off passengers at designated curbside locations. The pickup and drop-off areas will differ between the airport's two passenger terminals. The robotaxis use lights and audio signals to help passengers find them in crowded pickup zones. Riders can also connect their devices through Bluetooth to play their own music during the trip. Each vehicle can accommodate four passengers and has carriage-style seating, with two rows positioned across from each other. Zoox said a fully occupied vehicle can hold approximately one piece of luggage per passenger. The backstory: On July 31, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration granted Zoox a temporary exemption from certain federal motor vehicle safety standards. The decision removed a key regulatory obstacle that had prevented the company from charging passengers for rides. The exemption was required because Zoox vehicles do not have conventional driving controls, such as a steering wheel or pedals, that federal safety rules typically require. After receiving approval from the federal government, Zoox began offering paid robotaxi rides in Las Vegas on Aug. 10. The company also operates in San Francisco, where its service is still being tested. Available destinations listed in the app include the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Sphere, T-Mobile Arena and several major resorts along the Strip. Zoox's website says the company plans to expand paid rides to 10 additional cities, including Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Diego and Los Angeles. The Source: FOX Business contributed to this report. The information in this story came from Zoox, which provided details about its new airport robotaxi service to FOX Business and published additional information on its website. This story was reported from Los Angeles.

Uber and Wayve launch britain's first self-driving taxis on London's streets. Uber and British AI startup Wayve launched supervised self-driving rides in London on September 3, 2026, the UK's first autonomous taxi service. Fifteen camera-based Ford Mustang Mach-Es, backed by an $8.6 billion Wayve valuation, now compete directly with Waymo's LiDAR-heavy approach in one of Europe's toughest driving cities. Uber and Wayve have put supervised self-driving taxis into London at real street level: 15 Ford Mustang Mach-Es, ordinary Uber bookings, and a safety driver still watching the wheel. Call an UberX in London now and you may get the strangest version of a familiar ride: a Ford Mustang Mach-E that drives itself while a licensed safety driver sits ready to take over. Uber and Wayve launched the UK's first public autonomous ride service on Thursday, September 3, matching some UberX, Uber Comfort and Uber Electric riders with cars running Wayve's AI Driver software at no extra cost. That's the important part. This isn't a closed demo on a business park road. It's London, in regular Uber categories, with regular passengers and no special fare. Transport for London granted Private Hire Vehicle licences to Wayve's autonomous electric Mustang Mach-Es in August, and ITV News and the Guardian reported that the launch fleet starts with 15 vehicles. Uber's own launch note says riders can accept the Wayve car or switch to a non-autonomous ride before it arrives. The fleet is tiny. London has about nine million people, and 15 cars won't change how the city moves this month. But demand is already much bigger than supply. Uber said in August that more than 100,000 Londoners had joined the interest list, and the Wall Street Journal reported this week that more than 140,000 users have opted in. Wayve is testing a harder route. Wayve is not copying Waymo. That is what makes this launch worth your attention. Wayve has opened a second employee tender offer, letting staff sell up to $85 million in shares at an $8.5 billion valuation just months after its $1.2 billion Series D. The move fits a broader pattern of AI mega-startups like OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX using private tenders to reward employees while delaying public listings. - Wayve employee stock tender offer details - European autonomous driving startup valuation Waymo runs fully driverless paid rides in San Francisco and other US cities, with vehicles built around sensors, detailed mapping and careful market-by-market rollout. Zoox, Amazon's robotaxi company, has opened a free early-rider program in San Francisco and separately announced a deal to bring Zoox vehicles to Uber's app in Las Vegas first, then Los Angeles in 2027. Wayve is taking a different line. Its pitch is that a learned AI driving system can work across places and vehicle types without leaning on high-definition maps as the core of the product. The company has been pushing that claim in public for years. Wayve says its AI-500 Roadshow took its software through 506 cities across Europe, North America and Asia by December 2025, including 219 cities where it operated with no prior local data. The company calls that zero-shot driving. You don't have to accept the phrase as magic. You should read it as the commercial question Wayve now has to answer in traffic. London is a brutal place to prove it. Narrow roads. Odd junctions. Cyclists sliding through gaps, buses stopping hard, black cabs moving with the confidence of people who have spent years learning the Knowledge. A camera-led AI model either copes with that mess or it doesn't. The city will not flatter weak software. Money has already taken a side. Wayve said in February that it raised a $1.2 billion Series D round led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with Microsoft, Nvidia, Uber, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis among the investors. The round valued the company at $8.6 billion and sat inside a wider $1.5 billion financing package that included extra milestone-based Uber capital for robotaxi deployment. Uber is not just giving Wayve a button in the app. It's backing the company that could help it avoid being boxed out by Waymo, Tesla, Zoox, Baidu and every other operator trying to own the rider relationship once the driver comes out of the car. The driver is still the story. Frankly, the safety driver matters more than the branding. TfL's approval covers a supervised phase, which means a trained, licensed driver remains behind the wheel and can brake or take control. The car may be doing the driving, but the legal and human backstop is still sitting in front of you. That makes London's launch different from Waymo's driverless service in parts of the US. It also makes it easier for regulators to swallow. Britain is letting autonomous vehicles into public passenger service without asking the public to jump straight into a car with an empty front seat. For Paris, Berlin or Madrid, that slower model may be the one that travels best. Uber burned through its entire 2026 AI coding budget by April after roughly 5,000 engineers pushed token consumption beyond projections, prompting a $1,500 per month per-tool cap. Walmart, Amazon, and Cisco followed with similar controls. A new layer of AI ops tooling is emerging to address the governance gap, from OpenAI's enterprise spend... - how to manage AI coding tool - AI agent spending control for engineering There is a jobs argument sitting underneath all of this, and it shouldn't be brushed aside. London taxi drivers spend years learning the city's streets. Private-hire drivers already work inside a platform economy that can squeeze pay and change rules fast. Fifteen supervised cars are not a threat to a trade. Fifteen hundred unsupervised cars would be a different conversation. For now, the service is best understood as a public test with paying riders, not a robotaxi takeover. The cars are electric Mustang Mach-Es, the trips are ordinary Uber bookings, the airports are excluded, and the safety driver is still there. If Wayve wants London to prove its model can scale beyond carefully mapped US grids, this is the right place to try. It is also the wrong place to hide. Join the discussion. No replies yet. Start the discussion. Julian Lim is an entrepreneur, technology writer, and a researcher. He started JL Data Analysis after graduating from NUS in Intelligent Systems. Julian writes about technology innovations and entrepreneurship on Business Times, Asia Pacific Magazine and occasionally contributes to Startup Fortune.