Zoox, the autonomous car firm owned by Amazon, paused its driverless testing program for greater than every week and issued a voluntary recall of its software program following a crash in Las Vegas, in keeping with the corporate and a submitting with federal security regulators.
The April 8 crash, which concerned an unoccupied Zoox car and a passenger automobile, prompted the corporate to challenge a recall for about 270 autos outfitted with a particular model of its automated driving system. The recall quantity doesn’t replicate the total fleet dimension, in keeping with Zoox. The recall was issued over issues the self-driving software program may inaccurately predict the motion of one other car and enhance the chance of a crash.
The corporate mentioned no accidents have been reported and minor harm occurred to each autos. The crash occurred after a passenger automobile shortly approached the lane from a industrial driveway the place the purpose-built robotaxi was touring, according to Zoox. The Zoox car, which inaccurately predicted that the passenger automobile would proceed, slowed down and steered to the correct. As a substitute, “the automobile got here to a cease, absolutely yielding to the Zoox robotaxi and remaining within the shoulder lane,” in keeping with the corporate. “The Zoox robotaxi braked onerous, however contact was unavoidable,” the corporate wrote in its weblog submit.
Zoox mentioned it paused all driverless testing operations on April 8 — the day of the crash — and launched an inner assessment. Operations resumed after a software program replace was launched to all Zoox autos on April 17, in keeping with a report submitted to the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration.
The crash, and voluntary recall, comes as Zoox pushes to launch a industrial robotaxi service in Las Vegas. An organization spokesperson confirmed that Zoox continues to be planning to launch that service later this yr.
The corporate has been testing its self-driving system in retrofitted Toyota Highlanders and its custom-built robotaxis, which don’t have a steering wheel or pedals in varied cities, notably alongside the Las Vegas Strip and in sure San Francisco neighborhoods. Earlier this yr, Zoox allowed staff, media, and different vetted visitors to try the service. The corporate can also be testing in Austin, Miami, and Seattle utilizing Highlanders with human security operators behind the wheel.
That is the second Zoox recall this yr. In March, the corporate issued a voluntary recall for 258 autos because of points with its autonomous driving system that would trigger sudden onerous braking.
Final yr, the NHTSA performed a preliminary investigation into the corporate after the company acquired two studies of incidents wherein motorcyclists collided with the again of Toyota Highlanders outfitted with Zoox expertise. The preliminary investigation discovered that in each instances, the Zoox autos have been working with their autonomous programs engaged.
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