Amazon's (AMZN.US) subsidiary Zoox receives approval from US regulators to advance road testing of autonomous vehicles without steering wheels.

According to the Zhitong Financial APP, the US Department of Transportation announced on Wednesday that the federal car safety regulatory agency has approved a safety standard exemption application from Amazon's self-driving subsidiary Zoox for vehicles without traditional control devices. This decision marks the end of years of negotiations between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the self-driving developer Zoox - Zoox had already announced its forward-looking design of removing the steering wheel and brake pedal as early as 2022.