Zoox Hires Tesla's Autopilot Hardware Head
Zoox, the Amazon-owned robotaxi company, has hired Zheng Gao, Tesla's former head of Autopilot hardware engineering. This move comes after Zoox CTO Jesse Levinson publicly challenged Tesla's claim of launching a robotaxi service in 2025. Waymo's recent issues highlight the challenges in this field.
Gao brings extensive experience, having spent eight years at Tesla and nine years at Apple. His expertise will be crucial for Zoox as it develops its autonomous driving technology. This hire suggests Zoox is actively recruiting top talent to advance its robotaxi ambitions, possibly in response to Google's Project Moohan.
Tesla's goal of releasing an unsupervised "Full Self-Driving" software remains a key focus, despite ongoing scrutiny. The departure of a key hardware engineer could potentially impact Tesla's progress. For more on the autonomous driving landscape, see Hyundai's integration of Google Maps.