Amazon's self-driving car shuttles people on public roads for first time

Zoox Inc., the self-driving startup owned by .com Inc., carried passengers in its fully autonomous vehicle on public roads for the first time. The company said the robotaxi trip marks the first time that a vehicle designed without human controls has carried passengers on a public road. To date, Zoox’s public-road testing has been limited to a fleet of retrofitted gas-powered cars that carry sensors powering the self-driving technology. On Feb. 3, Cruise said it had received permission from California’s department of motor vehicles to test its own Origin shuttle on the state’s public roads. The Zoox robotaxi doesn’t have traditional controls or pedals and can carry four passengers split across two inward facing rows of seats.