A car with no steering wheel, no pedals, and inward-facing seats just got permission to pick you up and charge you for the privilege. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration granted Amazon-owned Zoox a temporary exemption from federal safety standards, clearing the path for the first commercial deployment of a purpose-built robotaxi in the US.
Zoox’s approval is different from previous autonomous vehicle deployments. This isn’t a modified sedan with a safety driver pretending not to touch the wheel. It’s a vehicle designed from scratch with zero human controls, and the federal government just said it can start making money.
What NHTSA actually approved
The exemption covers eight specific Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards requirements that obviously don’t apply when there’s no steering wheel to test. NHTSA is allowing Zoox to deploy up to 2,500 of these vehicles per year over a two-year period.
The vehicles themselves are purpose-built pods with inward-facing seats and a top speed of 75 mph. Zoox CEO Aicha Evans called it “the first-ever commercial exemption for a purpose-built robotaxi,” and that distinction matters. Competitors like Waymo operate modified versions of existing vehicles. Zoox built something entirely new.
