Amazon's Zoox recalls self-driving vehicles amid emergency response issues The Amazon subsidiary company Zoox has said that it will recall its fleet of 105 autonomous vehicles in the United States. The technology company announced the recall on Friday due to mounting concerns that the vehicles may not detect heavy smoke and could impede emergency personnel. Zoox said on Friday that on June 20 an unoccupied Zoox autonomous vehicle encountered heavy smoke that obscured an active emergency fire scene. The Zoox vehicle entered the scene, then braked hard while attempting to steer away, before coming to a stop. The Zoox vehicle, under teleguidance, reversed, after which first responders placed traffic cones at the scene, blocking two of the three lanes.

Zoox, the Amazon-owned robotaxi company, announced a voluntary software recall for its vehicles. The company had paused its driverless vehicle operations for a review following an incident last month where a Zoox car and a passenger car collided in Las Vegas. According to the report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the crash did not cause any injuries. CNBC reports that Zoox has resumed usual operations following the software update. "After analysis and rigorous testing, Zoox identified the root cause," the company said in a blog post today.

For a human to drive successfully around an urban environment, they must be able to trust their eyes and other senses, know where they are, understand the permissible ways to move their vehicle safely, and of course know how to reach their destination. Building these abilities, and so many more, into an autonomous electric vehicle designed to transport customers smoothly and safely around densely populated cities takes an astonishing amount of technological innovation. Since its founding in 2014, Zoox has been developing autonomous ride-hailing vehicles, and the systems that support them, from the ground up. The company, which is based in Foster City, California, became an independent subsidiary of Amazon in 2020. The Zoox purpose-built robot is an autonomous, pod-like electric vehicle that can carry four passengers in comfort.