Zoox, the company of autonomous vehicles owned by Amazon, paused its driver -free test program for more than a week and has issued a volunteer of its software following an accident in Las Vegas, according to the company and a deposit with federal security regulators.
The accident of 8 April, which involved an unarmed Zoox vehicle and a passenger car, prompted the company to issue a call for about 270 vehicles equipped with a specific version of its automated driving system. The call number does not reflect the complete size of the fleet, according to Zoox. The call was issued on the concerns that the autonomous driving software could inaccurate the movement of another vehicle inaccurate and increase the risk of an accident.
The company said that no accidents have been reported and that minor damage to both vehicles occurred. The accident occurred after a passenger car quickly approached the lane by a commercial road in which the specially built robotaxi was traveling, according to Zoox. The Zoox vehicle, which was in an imprecinely way that the passenger car would proceed, slowed down and sternum to the right. Instead, “the car stopped, completely giving in to the robotaxi zoox and remaining in the lane of the shoulders”, according to society. “The Zoox Robotaxi braked hard, but the contact was inevitable,” wrote the company in his blog post.
Zoox said he paused all the driver -free tests on April 8 – on the day of the accident – and launched an internal review. The operations resumed after a software update was issued to all Zoox vehicles on April 17, according to a report presented at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The accident and the voluntary call comes when Zoox pushes to launch a commercial robotaxi service in Las Vegas. A company spokesman confirmed that Zoox is still planning to launch that service by the end of the year.
The company has tested its autonomous driving system in Toyota Highlander Retrofit and its customized robotass, which do not have a steering wheel or pedals in various cities, in particular along the las vegas strip and in some neighborhoods of San Francisco. At the beginning of this year, Zoox allowed employees, media and other controlled guests to try the service. The company is also testing to Austin, Miami and Seattle using Highlander with human security operators behind the wheel.
This is the second call of Zoox this year. In March, the company issued a voluntary call for 258 vehicles due to problems with its autonomous driving system that could cause unexpected hard braking.
Last year, the NHTSA conducted a preliminary investigation on the company after the agency received two reports of accidents in which motorcyclists collided with the back of Toyota Highlanders with Zoox technology. The initial survey found that in both cases Zoox vehicles operated with their committed autonomous systems.
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