00:00What if your next driverless taxi had no steering wheel?
00:04That may soon become a reality.
00:06Amazon-owned Zoox has won the first U.S. approval for commercial deployment of a robo-taxi built without traditional
00:14human controls.
00:15The approval came from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA,
00:20allowing the company to begin charging for rides in Las Vegas once it completes state requirements.
00:26Here's NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison.
00:30Since our standards get into performance requirements for specific aspects, such as braking performance,
00:37they provided information and we received public comment,
00:40and we made that determination that their vehicle, as equipped, can meet all of those requirements and, in fact, exceed
00:48those.
00:48The vehicle looks very different from a conventional car.
00:52It's an electric carriage-style robo-taxi with two rows of inward-facing seats and a top speed of 75
00:59miles per hour.
01:01Federal officials say Zoox can deploy up to 2,500 vehicles in each of the next two years.
01:07The move comes as companies including Alphabet's Waymo and Elon Musk's Tesla
01:12race to expand driverless ride-hailing services across the U.S.
01:16The green light comes with added oversight.
01:19U.S. regulators say the firm must report issues, including crashes and inappropriate stops.
01:25Authorities also retain the power to revoke the exemption if major safety concerns emerge.
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