Amazon’s self-driving startup Zoox pulled the wraps off its first autonomous vehicle this week. Rather than automating a standard car built with a human driver in mind, the Zoox robotaxi is built specifically for autonomous driving in dense urban environments.

For example, it’s only 3.63 meters long, which gives the robotaxi one of the smallest footprints in the auto industry. It is also built with four-wheel steerings and bi-directional driving. Four passengers face each other inside the compact vehicle, which looks more like a single carriage on a tram rather than a car in the conventional sense. 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 provides a 270-degree field of view from all four corners of the robotaxi, which basically eliminates blind spots.(SD-Agencies)