The debate between BMW’s top compact performance cars has never been more intense, and many buyers automatically assume the pricier, track-focused option is the obvious choice. But in 2025, that assumption doesn’t hold up. The more attainable alternative delivers nearly the same straight-line speed, everyday comfort, and modern tech, making it a far more realistic and well-rounded option for most drivers.
LAS VEGAS — Our toaster has arrived.
Amazon’s Zoox robotaxi service launched in Las Vegas this fall, and a few members of the hard-working GeekWire Studios crew joined me to try it out for a ride to dinner after a long day at AWS re:Invent. Zoox was nothing short of a hit with our group.
The consensus: it was a smooth, futuristic shuttle ride that felt safe amid the Las Vegas chaos, with per-seat climate control, and customizable music. (Somehow we landed on Cher, but in this vehicle, we felt no need to turn back time.) Most of all, the face-to-face seating made for a fun group experience, rather than a retrofitted car like Waymo.
Zoox, founded in 2014, was acquired by Amazon in 2020 for just over $1 billion, marking the tech giant’s move into autonomous vehicle technology and urban mobility. Zoox operates as an independent subsidiary, based in Foster City, Calif.
Unlike competitors that retrofit vehicles, Zoox designed its robotaxi from scratch. It’s a compact, 12-foot-long electric pod, bidirectional, without steering wheel or pedals.
The experience of calling the Zoox vehicle on the app was seamless and quick. The doors opened via a button in the app after the carriage arrived to pick us up at a designated station between Fashion Show Mall and Trump International Hotel.
Inside, our nighttime ride featured a starfield display on the interior ceiling of the cab, adding to the magical feel, with functional seats comfortable enough for a drive across the city.
A few of us had experienced Waymo in California, so it was natural to make the comparison. One thing I missed was the live virtual road view that Waymo provides, representing surrounding vehicles and roadways, which provides some reassurance.
Emergency human assistance also seemed more accessible in the Waymo vehicles than in the Zoox carriage. And unlike the Waymo Jaguar cars that I’ve taken in San Francisco, the build quality of the Zoox vehicle felt more utilitarian than luxury.
For this current phase of the Vegas rollout, one major downside is the limited service area — just seven fixed spots along the Las Vegas strip, like Resorts World, Luxor, and AREA15, requiring walks between hubs rather than seamless point-to-point hails. It’s more of a novelty for that reason, rather than a reliable form of transportation.
But hey, the rides are free for now, so it’s hard to complain.
And the ability to sit across from each other more than made up for any minor quibbles. (Our group of five split up and took two four-person carriages from Fashion Show Mall to Resorts World.) Compared to the Waymo experience, the Zoox vehicle feels less like sitting in a car and more like sharing a moving living room.
GeekWire Studios host Steph Stricklen was initially skeptical — wondering if Vegas would be the right place for an autonomous vehicle, given the chaotic backdrop and unpredictable traffic patterns on the Strip. But she walked away a believer, giving the ride a “10 out of 10” and saying she never felt unsafe as a passenger.
“It felt very Disneyland,” said GeekWire Studios host Brian Westbrook, citing the creature comforts such as climate control that seemed to be isolated to each seat. Along with music and other controls, that’s one of the features that can be accessed via small touch-screen displays for each passenger on the interior panel of the vehicle.
GeekWire project manager Jessica Reeves said she almost forgot that there wasn’t a human driving. Despite rapid acceleration at times, the ride was smooth.
“It didn’t feel like I was riding in an autonomous vehicle, maybe it was just the buzz of experiencing this new way of transportation,” Jessica messaged me afterward, reflecting on the experience. “The spaciousness, facing my friends, exploring the different features, it all happened so fast that before I knew it, we were there!”
Holly Grambihler, GeekWire’s chief sales and marketing officer, was impressed with the clean interior and comfortable seats.
“It felt less like a vehicle and more like a mobile karaoke studio with the customized climate control and ability to choose your music — Cher in Vegas, perfect!” Holly said. “It felt safe with our short ride. I don’t think I’d take a Zoox on a freeway yet.”
On that point: Zoox’s purpose-built pod is engineered to reach highway speeds of up to about 75 mph, and the company has tested it at those velocities on closed tracks. In Las Vegas, though, the robotaxis currently stick to surface streets at lower speeds, and Zoox hasn’t yet started mixing into freeway traffic.
The Vegas service launch marked Zoox’s first public robotaxi deployment, offering free rides along a fixed loop on and around the Strip while gathering data for paid trips. Zoox followed with a limited public launch in San Francisco in November.
For Amazon, the technology represents a long-term bet, with the potential to contribute to its logistics operations. It’s not hard to imagine similar vehicles shuttling packages in the future. But for now the focus is on public ridership.
The company has flagged Austin, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Seattle as longer-term potential markets for the robotaxi service as regulations and technology mature. We’ve contacted Zoox for the latest update on its plans.
If our own ride this week was any indication, the company’s biggest challenge may simply be expanding the robotaxi service fast enough for more people to try it.
Editor’s note: GeekWire Studios is the content production arm of GeekWire, creating sponsored videos, podcasts, and other paid projects for a variety of companies and organizations, separate from GeekWire’s independent news coverage. GeekWire Studios had a booth at re:Invent, recording segments with Amazon partners in partnership with AWS. Learn more about GeekWire Studios.
There’s some Toyota news today that doesn’t involve the chairman wearing a MAGA hat. The Japanese automaker evidently decided it’s been too long since it flexed its engineering chops on something with two doors and plenty of power, so it has rectified that situation with a new flagship coupe for its Gazoo Racing sporty sub-brand. Meet the GR GT, which looks set to go on sale toward the end of next year.
The Camry-esque look at the front, and to an extent the rear, came second to the GR GT’s aerodynamics, which is the opposite way to how Toyota usually styles its cars. It’s built around a highly rigid aluminum frame—Toyota’s first, apparently—with carbon fiber for the hood, roof, and some other body panels to minimize weight. The automaker says that lowering the car’s center of gravity was a top priority, and weight balance and distribution also help explain the transaxle layout, where the car’s transmission is behind the cockpit and between the rear wheels.
That transaxle transmission will be an eight-speed automatic that uses a wet clutch instead of a torque converter and into which the car’s hybrid motor is integrated. Power from the 4.0 L twin-turbo V8 and the hybrid system should be a combined 641 hp (478 kW) and 626 lb-ft (850 Nm). Despite the aluminum frame and use of composites, the GT GR is no featherweight; it will weigh as much as 3,858 lb (1,750 kg). The V8 is a new design with a short stroke, a hot-V configuration for the turbochargers, and dry sump lubrication.
© Toyota
Audi’s newest compact sedan is reshaping one of the most iconic rivalries in the luxury market, and it’s aiming straight at the BMW 3-Series. With the arrival of the 2025 A5 sedan, the competition has become more intense than it’s been in years. The latest model introduces a sportier character, sharper driving dynamics, and a level of refinement that puts real pressure on its German counterpart.
A new year is right around the corner, and that means the countdown to CES 2026 has begun. CES is the most important time of the year for tech news — and that includes automotive tech. As automakers have sought to appear more like tech companies and integrate more software-based features into their vehicles, CES […]
The post I’m not expecting huge car news at CES 2026, but that’s exactly what you should want appeared first on Digital Trends.
It’s been less than a year into the second Trump administration, and to many outside observers, US government policies appear confusing or incoherent. Yesterday provided a good example from the automotive sector. As has been widely expected, the White House is moving ahead with plans to significantly erode fuel economy standards, beyond even the permissive levels that were considered OK during the first Trump term.
Yet at the very announcement of that rollback, surrounded by compliant US automotive executives, the president decided to go off piste to declare his admiration for tiny Japanese Kei cars, telling Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to make them street-legal in the US.
A little over a decade ago, the Obama administration announced new fuel economy standards for light trucks and cars that were meant to go into effect this year, bringing the corporate fleet fuel economy average up to 50.4 mpg. As you can probably tell, that didn’t happen. It wasn’t a popular move with automakers, and the first Trump administration ripped up those rules and instituted new, weaker targets of just 40.4 mpg by 2026.
© Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The new BMW iX3 is an important car for the automaker. It’s the first of a new series of vehicles that BMW is calling the Neue Klasse, calling back to a range of cars that helped define the brand in the 1960s. Then, as now, propulsion is provided by the best powertrain BMW’s engineers could design and build, wrapped in styling that heralds the company’s new look. Except now, that powertrain is fully electric, and the cabin features technology that would have been scarcely believable to the driver of a new 1962 BMW 1500.
In fact, the iX3 is only half the story when it comes to BMW’s neue look for the Neue Klasse—there’s an all-electric 3 series sedan on the way, too. The sedan will surely appeal to enthusiasts, particularly the version that the M tuning arm has worked its magic upon, but you’ll have to wait until early 2026 to read about that stuff. Which makes sense: crossovers and SUVs—or “sports activity vehicles” in BMW-speak—are what the market wants these days, so that’s what comes first.
As we learned earlier this summer, BMW leaned heavily into sustainability when it designed the iX3. There’s extensive use of recycled battery minerals, interior plastics, and aluminum, and the automaker has gone for a monomaterial approach where possible to make recycling the car a lot easier. There’s also an all-new EV powertrain, BMW’s sixth-generation. When it goes on sale here next summer, the launch model will be the iX3 50 xDrive, which pairs an asynchronous motor at the front axle and an electrically excited synchronous motor at the rear for a combined output of 463 hp (345 kW) and 475 lb-ft (645 Nm).
© BMW
When you think of a Bentley, you probably imagine a car so luxurious it practically whispers “I’m better than you” at traffic lights. I’ve driven my fair share of high-end cars, but collecting the 2026 Bentley Flying Spur Speed from the British automaker's Crewe HQ still felt like stepping into another world.
Honda’s upcoming sports coupe is easily one of the most anticipated new models of the decade, but early buyers may face a reality that takes some of the excitement out of the equation. With demand already high and supply expected to be limited at launch, shoppers can expect steep prices that push this sleek performance coupe far beyond its projected MSRP.
If you’re shopping for a comfortable, upscale SUV without luxury-brand pricing, one Nissan model stands out as an unexpected gem. Despite wearing a mainstream badge, this midsize SUV delivers cabin quality, ride comfort, and premium features that rival what you’d expect from an Infiniti, at a far more attainable price point.
Imagine a twin-turbo V6 pushing 420 horsepower, tucked into a sleek, luxurious sedan that weighs under 4,000 pounds and handles like it’s dancing through corners.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with STANLEY. If you want one piece of gear in your trunk that can handle more than just jump-starting a dead battery, this Stanley J5C09D 1200 Amp jump starter is worth a look. As part of a Cyber Monday deal, it’s down to $81.48 on Amazon, […]
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This post is brought to you in paid partnership with AVAPOW. If your idea of “roadside backup” is hoping the battery doesn’t die, this is a nice upgrade for the glove box. This 3000A peak portable battery jump starter is currently $44.99 at Walmart, down from $139.99, so you’re saving $95 on a compact booster […]
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If you’ve been searching for a sporty, fun-to-drive hatchback that won’t break the bank, the used market has a surprising standout. One Japanese-built sports hatchback has become a steal, offering sharp handling, peppy performance, and stylish looks, all at a price far below what you’d expect for its driving experience.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with NEXPOW. If your “emergency kit” is just hoping the battery doesn’t die, this 3000A portable car jump starter is a big upgrade. As part of a Cyber Monday deal, it’s down to $47.48, reduced from $79.99 for a 41% discount. It’s built to handle up […]
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