LAS VEGAS (AP) 鈥� 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.
础尘补锄辞苍鈥檚 vehicles got approval Thursday to begin charging customers for rides in the specially designed cars that feature four inward-facing seats once they secure state and local approval. Zoox has already been offering free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco since last year. 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-shaped vehicles.
鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of scary at first, but when I just got used to it, it鈥檚 really cool and chilling. I really liked the music and how you can adjust the temperature,鈥� Chloe Huu from Ann Arbor, Michigan, said after taking a ride in a Zoox Thursday. But the projected wait time for the ride kept changing, which made it hard to plan.
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 鈥渃op on the beat to make sure that this is being done right.鈥�
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’t really needed in an autonomous vehicle.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e 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,鈥� Morrison said.
Questions remain about robotaxi safety
The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety group raised concerns about Zoox鈥檚 plan to operate without a steering wheel or other standard controls because the company didn鈥檛 provide detailed evidence to show that its vehicles could operate safely on public roads.
鈥淟ots of promises, lots of glossy language, lots of 鈥榃e believe, we think we鈥檒l do this.鈥� Yet there really was no data behind the promises, and that鈥檚 really concerning to us,鈥� said Peter Kurdock, who is general counsel for the Advocates group.
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’re 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.
鈥淪ometimes we have seen unsafe behaviors, and we jump on that really quickly again. That鈥檚 our job at NHTSA,鈥� Morrison said. But he said Americans shouldn’t be terribly worried about the safety of these robotaxis.
鈥淏y and large we鈥檙e really excited about the promise of this technology and we want to see that promise fulfilled,鈥� he said.
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.
Most companies don’t report how many miles their autonomous vehicles drove, which makes it impossible to calculate a crash rate, according to the IIHS. And there isn’t 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.
Robotaxi industry is expanding quickly nationwide
Zoox and Tesla are working to catch up to the that already . Waymo is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
Zoox CEO Aicha Evans said this approval is an important milestone for autonomous vehicles.
鈥淭his achievement reflects a shared commitment to enabling innovation while maintaining the highest standards of safety,鈥� Evans said.
hopes to eventually produce as many as 10,000 robotaxis a year at a plant near Silicon Valley as it works to challenge Waymo. paid $1.2 billion to acquire . 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.
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AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.
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