Sustainability isn’t just important at Zoox: it’s a core part of why we’re here. Even our name points to this. ‘Zoox’ comes from ‘zooxanthellae’: tiny, algae-like organisms, powered by the sun, that support the biodiversity of coral reef ecosystems. It’s a great metaphor for the relationship we see Zoox having with cities, people, and our environment.
This Earth Day, we want to explain the journey we’re taking to support a gradual shift from today’s reliance on private car ownership to a cleaner transportation system of shared, all-electric, ride-hailing vehicles.
Driving gas-powered cars isn’t sustainable
Gas-powered private cars don’t make sense for our environment—or our future. Consider a few eye-opening facts:
- A quarter of US air pollution is caused by transportation (Source: EPA, 2018)
- Globally, transportation accounts for a quarter of CO2 emissions. (Source: BBC, 2020)
- We only use our cars 4% of the time, leaving them to depreciate on driveways for the other 96% (Source: Fortune, 2016)
And while switching to hybrid or all-electric vehicles can help cut emissions, it doesn’t solve all of these problems.
Individual ownership isn’t the answer
Manufacturing a new car can create as much carbon pollution as driving it (Source: Fortune, 2016)—and manufacturing battery-electric vehicles is even more energy-intensive. Given how much of the time most cars spend sitting on driveways, that’s a huge waste.
The fastest route to lowering emissions is very simple: manufacture fewer cars.
All-electric, meet ride-share
As each Zoox vehicle is all-electric, it produces less emissions than gas-powered vehicles. But by starting from the ground up, we wanted to go further. We wanted to create a service that would completely change the mobility landscape.
Our all-electric vehicle is designed to be shared. When you’re not riding in it, someone else is. We’ll also own and operate our fleet of vehicles. This means:
- We reduce the carbon footprint associated with vehicle manufacturing, because we’re manufacturing fewer vehicles with greater utilization rates.
- There’s less congestion on roads, so everyone else can travel more efficiently too.
To put it another way: Zoox makes transportation cleaner and more sustainable, whether you’re riding with us or not.