Amazon officially making its high stakes entry into the Robotaxi race.

It's self-driving unit Zooks launching in Las Vegas going public today for the first time with cabs that don't have a steering wheel or pedals.

Our McKenzie Sagalos has that in today's tech check.

Morning, Mac.

Hey, good morning, Carl.

So five years after its $1.3 billion Zooks acquisition, and Amazon is

officially in the AV wars. For now, the footprint is small, free rides on the Vegas strip

to build familiarity before regulators clear paid service, but it's also the public debut of a purpose-built

robotaxie where ditching the steering wheel required special permission

and led to delays. The move, though, giving Amazon a flashy tourism showcase and a beachhead

market. This launch puts another Mag 7 giant into the Robo Taxi race, joining Alphabet and

Tesla in a fast-growing field that is betting big on autonomy.

Waymo leading on scale. It is spreading across the country. And here in San Francisco,

its fleet has tripled since its last disclosure. Waymo is available through Uber in certain markets.

CEO Dara Khoshajee saying this week that in Atlanta and Austin, demand for driverless cars is

already busier than 99% of human drivers. He also says consumers are willing to pay a premium.

Tesla's service, though, it is still limited to geo-fenced areas in Austin with human supervisors.

Its robo-taxie app was finally opened to the public this month after a long invite-only run,

but the debut was bumpy with reports of spotty access.

And then there's the tech that's powering all of this.

Tesla uses cameras while Zooks is using the same technology as Waymo, which is LIDAR.

That has gotten dramatically cheaper. Elon Musk has

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