{"id":5920,"date":"2026-07-31T13:11:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5920"},"modified":"2026-07-31T13:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:11:18","slug":"some-robotaxis-approved-to-operate-without-steering-wheels-losing-the-brake-pedal-could-be-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5920","title":{"rendered":"Some robotaxis approved to operate without steering wheels; losing the brake pedal could be next"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>By <strong>JOSH FUNK and TY O\u2019NEIL<\/strong>, Associated Press<\/p>\n<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Federal regulators are clearing the way for robotaxis to operate without manual controls like steering wheels or eventually even brake pedals as the rules start to catch up to the evolving technology.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5918\">Goodwill finds new San Jose store location that offers expansion space<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Amazon\u2019s fully autonomous Zoox vehicles got approval Thursday to begin charging customers for rides once they secure state and local approval. Zoox has already been offering free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco since last year.<\/p>\n<p>At least a couple people were waiting at most stops Thursday afternoon for rides up and down the Vegas strip aboard one of the distinctive boxy vehicles, which have four inward-facing streets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s kind of scary at first, but when I just got used to it, it\u2019s really cool and chilling. I really liked the music and how you can adjust the temperature,\u201d Chloe Huu from Ann Arbor, Michigan, said after taking a ride in a Zoox. But the projected wait time for the ride kept changing, which made it hard to plan.<\/p>\n<p>The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also proposed a rule last month to allow robotaxis to operate without brake pedals, but that proposal is still pending. Administrator Jonathan Morrison said his agency wants to update the regulations to fit these fully autonomous vehicles while still acting as the \u201ccop on the beat to make sure that this is being done right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Most vehicle safety regulations were written decades ago, always with the assumption that there would be a human driver behind the wheel. But Morrison said that things like steering wheels, windshield wipers and side-view mirrors aren\u2019t really needed in an autonomous vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re going to be developing a standard in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, nobody at that time had this imagination, nobody had a crystal ball that you might have technologies that would enable the vehicle to drive itself,\u201d Morrison said.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>Questions remain about robotaxi safety<\/h4>\n<p>The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety group raised concerns about Zoox\u2019s plan to operate without a steering wheel or other standard controls because the company didn\u2019t provide detailed evidence to show that its vehicles could operate safely on public roads.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLots of promises, lots of glossy language, lots of \u2018We believe, we think we\u2019ll do this.\u2019 Yet there really was no data behind the promises, and that\u2019s really concerning to us,\u201d said Peter Kurdock, who is general counsel for the Advocates group.<\/p>\n<p>Morrison said this technology does offer the promise of never driving distracted or drunk like human drivers do, but robotaxis have had some problems. Sometimes they\u2019re just weird behaviors like stopping in the middle of the road or struggling to get out of a parking lot. But he said NHTSA responded to the incidents of autonomous cars passing school buses or interfering with first responders, with investigations, recalls and calls to action.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5916\">How one of the Bay Area\u2019s most heavily Latino cities is fighting back against an ICE facility<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes we have seen unsafe behaviors, and we jump on that really quickly again. That\u2019s our job at NHTSA,\u201d Morrison said. But he said Americans shouldn\u2019t be terribly worried about the safety of these robotaxis.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cBy and large we\u2019re really excited about the promise of this technology and we want to see that promise fulfilled,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said recently that the limited crash data the government requires autonomous vehicle companies to submit makes it hard to assess the safety record of these robotaxis as they continue to expand across the country.<\/p>\n<p>Most companies don\u2019t report how many miles their autonomous vehicles drove, which makes it impossible to calculate a crash rate, according to the IIHS. And there isn\u2019t a clear standard for which incidents must be reported. So autonomous vehicle companies are reporting many more minor incidents than human drivers, who tend to only report a crash when there is significant damage or injuries.<\/p>\n<h4>Robotaxi industry is expanding quickly nationwide<\/h4>\n<p>Zoox and Tesla are working to catch up to the industry-leading Waymo that already operates in multiple cities. Waymo is owned by Google\u2019s parent company, Alphabet.<\/p>\n<p>Zoox CEO Aicha Evans said this approval is an important milestone for autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis achievement reflects a shared commitment to enabling innovation while maintaining the highest standards of safety,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon hopes to eventually produce as many as 10,000 robotaxis a year at a plant near Silicon Valley as it works to challenge Waymo. Amazon paid $1.2 billion to acquire self-driving startup Zoox. Initially, Zoox will only be allowed to deploy up to 2,500 vehicles without steering wheels over the next two years as it works to prove the technology is safe. The company said that more than half a million people have already ridden in its vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5909\">Horoscopes July 31, 2026: Rico Rodriguez, put more energy into your health<\/a><\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon\u2019s fully autonomous Zoox vehicles got approval Thursday to begin charging customers for rides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Some robotaxis approved to operate without steering wheels; 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