Zoox, the Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company, has unveiled a redesigned version of its robotaxi that tackles an unexpected challenge: passengers smoking weed inside the cabin. The new model, arriving on roads later this year, incorporates lessons from over 2.5 million miles of driverless operations in San Francisco and Las Vegas since last September.
“You’re not supposed to smoke in the vehicle. They smoke in the vehicle. And they’re smoking everything in the vehicle,” Chris Stoffel, Zoox’s director of robot industrial design and studio engineering, told Fast Company in an exclusive interview. The redesign focuses squarely on rider experience, with upgrades aimed at making trips more comfortable, calm, and easier to use—while also addressing odor and air quality issues.
Zoox’s fleet has logged significant real-world mileage, giving it a data-rich understanding of chaotic city streets and unpredictable passenger behavior. Unlike competitors like Waymo and Cruise, Zoox operates a custom-built bi-directional vehicle designed from the ground up for autonomy, rather than retrofitting existing cars. This design flexibility allows more radical interior changes.
The new version signals that robotaxi operators must plan for more than just traffic and pedestrians—they also have to contend with human nature inside the cabin. Stoffel described the majority of tweaks as “rider-centric,” aiming for “continual improvement” in an industry where trust and comfort are essential for mainstream adoption.
Still, solving the smoking problem is only part of a broader challenge: autonomous services must prove they can handle both external hazards and internal messes at scale. How Zoox's material choices and ventilation systems perform in the real world will determine whether this redesign truly reduces “stink” or just masks it.