Zoox signed a multi-year partnership with the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix and plans to offer robotaxi rides to and from the race’s Grand Prix Plaza starting in 2027, as the Amazon-owned company prepares to launch on Uber’s app in the city this month.
The deal comes as Zoox’s fleet has barely grown in recent weeks. It had 62 robotaxis in service on Thursday, one more than 30 days earlier, according to Robotaxi Tracker, and its Texas roster has stood at 63 vehicles since early October, state records show.
Zoox will be the “Event and Official Autonomous Ride Hail Partner” of the Formula 1 Heineken Las Vegas Grand Prix during race week, the company said on Thursday.
This year’s race weekend runs from November 19 to 21. Formula 1 extended the event’s contract in June to keep it in Las Vegas through 2037.
Rides to the event will not begin until 2027, when Zoox plans to serve the Grand Prix Plaza, with a dedicated pickup and drop-off zone. Zoox did not disclose financial terms or the length of the agreement beyond calling it multi-year.
The company did not say whether the 2027 rides would be paid, or limited to ticket holders.
This year, the partnership covers marketing. Zoox branding will appear between Turns 15 and 16, on the F1 rooftop LED, along the Paddock Club escalator and on the exterior of the Sphere.
Zoox will also present the Atlassian Williams F1 Team fan zone at New York-New York, host a hospitality space at Resorts World’s Turn 12, and serve as presenting partner for the Vegas Golden Knights’ November 17 home game against the Dallas Stars.
The company began testing in Las Vegas in 2019 and opened free public rides on the Strip in September 2025. It already has dedicated pickup zones at MGM Resorts properties, Sphere, T-Mobile Arena and Harry Reid International Airport.
Uber Launch This Month
“We are excited for Zoox to launch on Uber in Las Vegas later this month,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
The two companies announced the partnership in March, saying Zoox vehicles would be available in the Uber app in Las Vegas “this summer,” with Los Angeles to follow next year. It was Zoox’s first deal with a third-party ride-hailing platform.
Zoox charges for rides only in Las Vegas so far, where paid service began on August 10. It added service to Harry Reid International Airport in September.
Its bidirectional robotaxi has no steering wheel or pedals and seats four passengers facing each other.
In July, NHTSA granted Zoox an exemption to commercially deploy its purpose-built robotaxis, the first time the agency allowed a vehicle without traditional human controls to charge passengers. The exemption runs through July 31, 2028, and covers up to 2,500 vehicles in any 12-month period, according to the Federal Register notice.
Most rides are still free. Of the 211 Zoox rides logged by Robotaxi Tracker users in the past 90 days, 203 cost nothing, and the eight paid rides had a median fare of $17.37.
Fleet Holds Steady
Robotaxi Tracker counts 62 Zoox robotaxis in service, in Las Vegas and the San Francisco Bay Area, up from 57 three months ago. It has logged no newly spotted Zoox vehicles in November.
CEO Aicha Evans gave a higher figure on Wednesday, saying Zoox operates about 150 robotaxis across several U.S. cities, including San Francisco and Las Vegas, at The Wall Street Journal‘s Tech Live event, according to Reuters. The tracker counts only vehicles its users have spotted in service.
Evans also said Zoox plans to send data-collection vehicles to London, other European Union cities, South Korea and Japan as a first step toward service outside the U.S. She gave no timeline.
A Nevada permit that capped Zoox at 100 robotaxis in the state expired on September 25, TechCrunch reported, citing a Nevada Transportation Authority official and a Zoox spokesperson. Zoox had about 100 purpose-built robotaxis across four U.S. cities at the time, most of them in Las Vegas and San Francisco, the outlet said.
What the Texas Records Show
Zoox has 17 of its purpose-built robotaxis registered to operate in Texas, up from five before October, according to state records.
The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles lists Zoox, Inc., based in Foster City, California, as an authorized automated motor vehicle operator under authorization number AV1112826519229, granted on May 8, 2026. Its public lookup showed 63 vehicles under that authorization on Wednesday.
Decoding the vehicle identification numbers through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s database shows three groups.
Five are 2024 model-year Zoox vehicles built in Fremont, California. Twelve are 2027 model-year Zoox vehicles built in Hayward, California, where Zoox produces its robotaxis. The remaining 46 are 2017 and 2019 model-year Toyota Highlander hybrids, the model Zoox has retrofitted with its self-driving system and used for testing with safety drivers.
How the Roster Grew
The TxDMV lookup shows only the current list, without dates, so the roster’s history comes from independent trackers that poll the state registry.
FSD Database recorded 35 Zoox vehicles on June 9, rising to 38 on June 12, 43 on June 16 and 44 on June 23. The count then held at 44 until October 2, when it rose to 63. It showed no change in the seven or 30 days to Thursday.
Robotaxi Tracker, which polls the registry hourly, shows five of the 2024 model-year Zoox robotaxis on the list when its polling began on June 11, and the 12 2027 model-year robotaxis first appearing on October 2.
That puts the roster before October at five robotaxis and 39 Highlanders. The October update tripled the purpose-built fleet to 17 and left 46 Highlanders on the list.
Platform Aeronaut’s tracker also lists 63 active Zoox vehicles. “Registry changes are observed, not official effective dates,” it notes.
Robotaxi Tracker lists the 46 Highlanders as first seen on November 4. Its notes say validation and test vehicles on an authorization are left out of its fleet counts, and that its first-seen dates reflect its polls rather than the state’s registration dates.
Rivals Far Ahead
Zoox’s Texas roster remains a fraction of its rivals’. Waymo had 1,259 vehicles registered in Texas and Tesla had 1,244 on Wednesday, according to Robotaxi Tracker. Avride had 344.
Across all operators, Texas lists 2,910 robotaxis, up 792 in the past 30 days, according to the tracker. The figure excludes autonomous trucks and delivery vans.
Texas began requiring companies to obtain state authorization to operate driverless vehicles under a 2025 law, Senate Bill 2807.
Nuro, which plans to launch a robotaxi service with Uber and Lucid in Houston, had 47 vehicles registered in Texas as of September 10, according to the tracker.
Austin Still Employee-Only
Zoox started running its purpose-built robotaxis in Austin in March, in what it described as the next phase of a testing program that began in the city in 2024.
Only Zoox employees could ride at the time. The company said it planned to open the service to the public through its early rider program, Zoox Explorers, later this year.
“This expansion marks a significant step forward for Zoox,” Chief Executive Officer Aicha Evans said in March. “This is our year of growth.”
Zoox has not announced a public launch date for Austin. Its website says the service is live in Las Vegas and San Francisco and lists Austin and Miami as “now arriving.”
In September, Zoox began testing in Houston and San Diego, starting with retrofitted vehicles driven by humans to collect mapping data before autonomous testing. The state roster does not show how Zoox’s 63 vehicles are split between Texas cities.
Safety Record
In July, Zoox recalled software on 105 robotaxis after one drove into heavy smoke at an active fire scene in Las Vegas on June 20, The Next Web reported.
Zoox has filed 78 crash reports with NHTSA under the agency’s Standing General Order for automated driving systems, according to Robotaxi Tracker’s count of the federal data through September.
That compares with 1,283 for Waymo, 83 for Avride and 65 for Tesla. The reports cover any crash involving a vehicle operating with an automated driving system, regardless of fault.
In Austin, Zoox has been named in five incident reports to the City of Austin since 2023, the tracker shows, compared with 265 for Waymo and 22 for Tesla.
California Permits
In California, Zoox holds driverless permits covering 36 vehicles, according to the tracker’s snapshot of the state Department of Motor Vehicles roster from September 2.
Zoox still needs a California permit before it can charge passengers in San Francisco, TechCrunch reported in September.
