The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has certified self-driving vehicles developed by Amazon’s autonomous unit, Zoox, for demonstration use on U.S. public roads, and has officially closed its safety probe into the company’s compliance with federal requirements.
The safety agency had launched an investigation in 2022 to determine whether Zoox’s purpose-built autonomous vehicles—which lack traditional driving controls like steering wheels and pedals—met necessary federal safety standards when the company initially self-certified their use. In June, Zoox submitted a formal request for exemption from certain federal rules, which the NHTSA approved. The agency confirmed that all Zoox vehicles operating on public roads are now doing so under that exemption.
As part of the approval, NHTSA required Zoox to remove previous claims that its vehicles conformed to all applicable federal motor vehicle safety standards. The decision follows a broader push to streamline regulatory processes for autonomous vehicles. A previous effort under the Trump administration also sought to accelerate exemption requests, aiming to allow the deployment of up to 2,500 self-driving vehicles without traditional controls annually. Earlier proposals by General Motors and Ford were eventually withdrawn after facing long delays.
Zoox has faced recent setbacks in its rollout. In May, it voluntarily recalled 270 of its autonomous vehicles after a crash involving an unoccupied robotaxi and a passenger car in Las Vegas. The incident revealed a software issue in which the vehicle’s automated driving system failed to correctly predict the path of another car approaching perpendicularly at low speed. Zoox temporarily paused operations and issued a software update to resolve the issue.
The company also addressed a separate safety concern earlier this year involving unexpected braking incidents. In April, NHTSA concluded a probe into 258 Zoox vehicles after the company issued a software recall related to two collisions in which the automated systems unexpectedly braked, resulting in injuries to motorcyclists.
