Amazon’s driverless subsidiary Zoox has begun testing on public roads in California, using a vehicle without a steering wheel.

The company has announced it has received its driverless testing permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to operate its robotaxi autonomously on public roads.

“Over the weekend, we hit the road!” the company says in a statement. “It marked the first time in history that a purpose-built robotaxi—without any manual controls—drove autonomously on open public roads with passengers.

“This is a critical milestone for not only Zoox, but the AV industry as a whole, by bringing us one step closer to launching our service.

“Following the completion of our historic first run, we will deploy an employee shuttle service in our headquarters of Foster City, California. Employees will get to see the results of all of their hard work by taking a ride and experiencing the vehicle seamlessly navigate the road. We couldn’t be more proud.”

It has released a video of its vehicle in action:

(Picture – Zoox)