Zoox, Amazon’s brand of autonomous vehicles, has won approval in the United States for limited commercial deployment of its steering-wheel-free robotaxis, a first for the autonomous transportation industry.

On Thursday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave its approval for Zoox to begin charging customers for rides, once it secures state and local approval.

As part of that approval, the company was granted an exemption from federal rules that require human controls on motor vehicles.

NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison told the Reuters news agency that Zoox had so far met its safety requirements. But he indicated there would be a staggered rollout, and no Zoox vehicles would be immediately available for sale to the public.

“We can say pretty clearly that the systems in place on the Zoox exceed the equivalent performance requirements of a compliant vehicle,” Morrison said. “But we still want to make sure that the automated driving system will operate appropriately.”

According to Morrison, Zoox had received clearance to commercially deploy up to 2,500 vehicles in each of the next two years.

The NHTSA is also placing additional reporting requirements on Zoox for issues such as crashes or stopping inappropriately on roads.

Still, the approval marks a milestone for companies developing robotaxis that deviate from the models of standard motor vehicles.

Zoox’s cars are rectangular, carriage-style vehicles with rows of passenger seats that face each other, rather than both facing forward. The cars can travel up to 120km, or 75 miles, per hour. There is no driver’s seat, nor pedals or a steering wheel.

The company has already began offering free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco last year. It will soon begin charging for service, first in Las Vegas, with additional markets to follow as it completes state requirements.

Advocates for autonomous vehicles argue that NHTSA’s safety regulations were written before self-driving technology emerged. Such regulations, they say, can impede the development of new models of cars.

Critics, however, warn that loosening restrictions on autonomous vehicles could turn city streets into real-world technology experiments, putting lives at risk.

They point to incidents where driverless vehicles have struck pedestrians or animals, or have stalled in roadways, blocking traffic and emergency vehicles.

Just this month, Morrison issued a letter telling developers of autonomous vehicles (AVs) to “immediately focus” on fixing what NHTSA identified as “a clear pattern of driverless AVs interfering with law enforcement and other first responders”.

Following the letter, Zoox recalled its fleet of 105 autonomous vehicles to update the software, saying they might not detect heavy smoke, particularly in active emergencies.

The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety group raised concerns about Zoox’s plan to operate without a steering wheel or other standard controls because the company didn’t provide detailed evidence to show that its vehicles could operate safely on public roads.

“Lots of promises, lots of glossy language, lots of ‘We believe, we think we’ll do this.’ Yet there really was no data behind the promises, and that’s really concerning to us,” Peter Kurdock, the group’s general counsel, told The Associated Press news agency.

Zoox and Tesla are working to catch up to the industry-leading Waymo, which already operates in multiple cities.

Waymo is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and its vehicles are electric Jaguar SUVs, which include steering wheels and pedals for manual control if needed.

Zoox CEO Aicha Evans said this approval is an important milestone for autonomous vehicles.

“This achievement reflects a shared commitment to enabling innovation while maintaining the highest standards of safety,” Evans said.

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 $1.2bn to acquire self-driving startup Zoox. The company said that more than half a million people have already ridden in its vehicles.