Federal regulators have approved Amazon's Zoox to operate fully autonomous vehicles without steering wheels or manual controls, clearing the way for companies to charge customers for rides in specially designed cars that lack traditional driving equipment. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decision allows the company to deploy up to 2,500 such vehicles over two years as it works to prove the technology is safe.
The approval represents a significant shift in vehicle regulations written decades ago with the assumption that humans would always be behind the wheel. NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said his agency wants to update rules for fully autonomous vehicles while maintaining safety oversight. "If you're going to be developing a standard in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, nobody at that time had this imagination," Morrison said of the evolving technology.
What the Left Is Saying
Safety advocates expressed concern about the lack of detailed evidence provided by Zoox to demonstrate its vehicles can operate safely on public roads without manual controls. Peter Kurdock, general counsel for the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety group, said companies are making promises without data backing them up. "Lots of promises, lots of glossy language, lots of 'We believe, we think we'll do this.' Yet there really was no data behind the promises, and that's really concerning to us," Kurdock said.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety noted that limited crash data required from autonomous vehicle companies makes it difficult to assess their safety records as they expand. Most companies don't report how many miles their autonomous vehicles drove, making it impossible to calculate a crash rate. There isn't a clear standard for which incidents must be reported, leading to inconsistent data collection.
What the Right Is Saying
NHTSA Administrator Morrison emphasized that autonomous vehicles offer the promise of eliminating distracted or impaired driving while calling concerns manageable rather than systemic. "By and large we're really excited about the promise of this technology and we want to see that promise fulfilled," he said, adding that his agency responds quickly when unsafe behaviors are identified.
Zoox CEO Aicha Evans called the approval an important milestone. "This achievement reflects a shared commitment to enabling innovation while maintaining the highest standards of safety," Evans said. The company noted that more than half a million people have already ridden in its vehicles during free testing phases, with Amazon hoping to eventually produce as many as 10,000 robotaxis per year at a plant near Silicon Valley.
What the Numbers Show
Zoox was acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion and received approval to deploy up to 2,500 vehicles without steering wheels over two years under initial restrictions. The company has already been offering free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco since last year. NHTSA also proposed a rule last month that would allow robotaxis to operate without brake pedals, though that proposal remains pending. Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, currently leads the industry with operations across multiple cities.
The IIHS found that autonomous vehicle companies are reporting many more minor incidents than human drivers, who tend to only report crashes involving significant damage or injuries, complicating direct safety comparisons.
The Bottom Line
The Zoox approval marks a regulatory turning point as federal rules catch up to autonomous technology. What happens next will test whether industry promises of safe deployment match reality on public roads. Safety advocates say more transparent crash reporting standards are needed before widespread adoption. Regulators and companies alike say they want innovation paired with safety, but the data gaps identified by insurance researchers suggest monitoring these vehicles as their numbers grow will require new frameworks.