(Reuters) -Amazon.com-owned Zoox on Wednesday began offering robotaxi rides to the public for free on and around the Las Vegas Strip as it waits for state approval to collect fares and compete with Alphabet's Waymo and Tesla.

Waymo has a robotaxi service ferrying paying passengers in many U.S. cities, and Tesla has a limited number of robotaxis picking up paying customers in Austin, Texas. 

But Zoox looks and feels very different from its rivals, using a purpose-built vehicle that resembles a toaster oven on wheels. There are no manual controls such as a steering wheel or pedals, and passengers sit facing each other. 

"This is a very differentiating experience that you want people to sort of get to understand and know the robotaxi, get used to it, and give us feedback too," Zoox Chief Executive Aicha Evans told Reuters. "That's good for the community, that's good for the riders, and that's good for Zoox." 

Commercializing robotaxis has been harder than promised, with tight regulations, public protests, federal investigations and high investments forcing many fledgling robotaxi ventures to shut down. Amazon bought Zoox for $1.3 billion in 2020 and is one of the few contestants still in the autonomous vehicle race, which, if successful, could generate large returns. 

Zoox is seeking regulatory clearances for the paid service that it expects to start in the next few months. The vehicles will mostly run on their own with remote human assistance available only when the vehicle requests help.

TEST RIDE

Over the past month, Zoox has been operating a test loop ride out of a Las Vegas casino. "We've actually been getting thousands of riders every week just from this one location, which actually quite exceeded our expectations," Chief Technology Officer Jesse Levinson told Reuters.

The company has about 50 purpose-built vehicles in its fleet, a majority of which are in Las Vegas.

Zoox will "very soon" expand the service to San Francisco, where it has been testing for months and is now adding riders to a wait list, the executives said. Expansion to Miami, Austin, Texas; Atlanta and Los Angeles will follow later this year and next year, they said.

Tesla has started a ride-hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area with a safety driver who uses its self-driving technology. Waymo, with its roughly 2,000-vehicle fleet, operates in the Bay Area, along with parts of Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. 

Traditional ride-hailing company Uber is also fast emerging as a competitor, signing multiple deals to add autonomous vehicles to its network.