The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced on Wednesday that federal auto safety regulators have granted Amazon (AMZN.US) subsidiary Zoox an exemption from safety standards for its vehicles without traditional manual controls.
This decision concludes years of protracted negotiations between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the autonomous vehicle developer—Zoox first unveiled its steering wheel- and brake pedal-free design in 2022. NHTSA stated that the new exemption applies to all Zoox self-driving vehicles currently operating on public roads, though the specific scale of operations remains undisclosed.
It is understood that current U.S. auto safety standards typically require vehicles to retain manual controls, posing regulatory hurdles for automakers like Zoox and Tesla (TSLA.US) pursuing driverless designs. However, NHTSA has introduced multiple policy relaxations for autonomous driving this year. These include updating import vehicle exemption rules to cover domestically produced self-driving vehicles and streamlining exemption approval processes to accelerate technology deployment—reforms aligning with the regulatory approaches advocated by Tesla CEO Elon Musk during the Trump administration.
The policy shift marks a significant boost for U.S. autonomous driving pioneers like Zoox and Tesla. Under previous rules, multi-year approval processes can now be substantially shortened. This may fast-track commercialization for robotaxi companies and accelerate the overall growth of robotaxis in the U.S.