Chinese startup Pony.ai has commenced testing of its driverless vehicles on public roads he the US state of California. This is a prelude to the full rollout of commercial robotaxi services in the US planned for 2022.

Pony.ai is among the startups that have secured approval for driverless vehicle testing in both China and the United States. The testing has progressed past the stage where there will need to be a human safety driver behind the wheel to a fully autonomous operation. The testing is reportedly carried out daily on public roads in the Fremont and Milpitas area of California. A similar test-run is also carried out in the Chinese city of Guangzhou.

According to Techcrunch, Pony.ai has disclosed that it plans to resume a rideshare service that is open to the public in the city Californian of Irvine this summer. The robotaxis won’t be fully autonomous, though, as there will be a human safety driver behind the wheel. The startup aims to fully automate the running of the cars next year. That is if the firm is able to scale the regulatory hurdles that need to be overcome before such services will be allowed on public roads in the US and even China. Pony.ai CEO and co-founder James Peng calls the firm’s plan an “ambitious vision”.

Pony.ai isn’t alone in this goal of achieving fully autonomous robotaxi services. There are several other companies also testing their own models in different US cities, including some Chinese firms – AutoX, Baidu, and WeRide. Other firms also working on driverless rideshare services include Amazon’s Zoox, Cruise, Waymo, and Nuro. There are up to 55 such firms with operational licenses but Nuro is the only firm that has got a deployment permit which makes it possible for the company to roll out driverless car services commercially.

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Only about six months back, Amazon announced the acquisition of self-driving startup Zoox, and today the company pulled the wraps off its first autonomous vehicle. Instead of following the pathway, several other tech firms such as AutoX have followed which is automating a standard car built with a human driver in mind, the Zoox robotaxi is built specifically for autonomous driving in dense urban environments.

The robotaxi is just 3.63 meters long which is quite compact. That is mostly because there is no luggage compartment or a front hood housing a sophisticated mechanical engine. Instead, Zoox robotaxi has a cabin-like design where four passengers sit facing each other in pairs.

The Zoox Fully Autonomous, All-electric Robotaxi adopts four-wheel steerings and bi-directional driving in that there is no front or rear side. The vehicle also doesn’t have a steering wheel.

Despite its compact size, Zoox’s robotaxi can reach speeds up to 75 MPH. It’s powered by two individual battery packs that provide about 16 hours of run time before they need to recharge, so a single robotaxi should be able to do a day’s worth of work before it needs a power-up.

The carriage also has some unique safety features to go along with its unconventional design, including an airbag system specially built for its bi-directional design. Zoox says that all four seats get the equivalent of five-star crash safety protection. Meanwhile, the camera, LIDAR, and radar system provide a 270-degree field of view from all four corners of the robotaxi, which basically eliminates blind spots.

The tech start-up disclosed that the robotaxis are already being tested in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Foster City, CA. We can’t say for now if riders can hail a ride on the robotaxi.

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