February 15, 2023: -On Monday, An autonomous vehicle venture known as Zoox said it is testing its self-driving robotaxis on roads in California with passengers on board.

The vehicles have no pedals or wheels, and they have the bidirectional driving capacity and four-wheel steering, which allows them to change directions without the need to change.

Zoox executives stated that the firm started the tests after it received an allowance from the California of Motor Vehicles in the previous week.

The permit is only for some public roads in the state. The tests are limited to shuttling Zoox employees on a one-mile general route between two office towers at the firm’s headquarters in Foster City, California, starting at 35 miles an hour. The group did not say how extensive its test fleet is, but executives have stated that they have built “dozens” of vehicles, although less than 100.

Zoox stated that one of its vehicles completed a test run with employees on board regarding the weekend.

Amazon needed the 9-year-old startup in 2020 and, at the time, shared few details regarding how it planned to use the firm’s technology. Zoox revealed its custom-built, electric robotaxi in 2020 with an eye on offering on-demand autonomous transport in urban settings.

GM’s driverless unit, Cruise, has also created an autonomous shuttle known as Origin, which does not have manual controls. Last year, Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo received approval for their driverless taxi services in California and charging the passengers for the rides.

Unlike Cruise, Zoox stated that its driverless vehicles, which do not have a wheel or different manual controls, meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, so the company does not require any waiver to put them into need on public roads.

All firms testing their vehicles on public roads in California must report every time their system disengages or, however, a human driver has to take for the autonomous system while driving, usually because of safety concerns or software issues.

Zoox doesn’t even attach to these incidents as disengagements, but as cases where the vehicle needs support or guidance, so it does not report them to the state.