Amazon’s spending more than a billion dollars to buy American driverless start-up Zoox.

Analysts think the retailer will use the technology to expand into the ride hailing business rather than for autonomous deliveries, although clearly that would be attractive to save costs in the logistics side of its operation.

A price has not been disclosed although recent reports suggested it could be multiple times more than the billion report.

Zoox, which was founded in 2014, will continue to be a stand-alone business. It has been working on a complete driverless solution, rather than trying to fit technology to existing vehicles.

(Picture – Zoox website)