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Zoox Recalls Software After Smoke Confuses Robotaxi
Zoox recalled software for 105 robotaxis after one struggled near a smoke-filled fire scene. No injuries were reported.
Image: TechCrunch
Zoox has issued a software recall after one of its robotaxis struggled to navigate a smoke-filled emergency fire scene in June. The Amazon-owned company said Friday that it had shipped an update to its fleet of 105 vehicles.
Nobody was aboard the vehicle during the incident, and Zoox told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that it was not aware of any associated injuries. The agency’s report did not identify where the event occurred. Zoox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What happened during the fire response
According to the NHTSA report, the incident occurred on June 20, when a Zoox robotaxi encountered “heavy smoke that obscured an active emergency fire scene that was not cordoned off with cones.” The vehicle “braked hard while attempting to steer away before coming to a stop.”
A Zoox teleoperator then reversed the robotaxi away from the scene, allowing first responders to place traffic cones. Zoox said it investigated the root cause and searched for similar incidents, concluding that “this is the only event of this kind that Zoox has experienced.”
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The company had several conversations with NHTSA in late June and early July about the issue’s “severity, frequency, and root causes.” Zoox decided to issue the recall on July 7, one day before NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison sent a letter warning self-driving companies not to interfere with emergency responders.
“Let me be clear: the inability to detect and appropriately respond to such situations represents a functional insufficiency.”
Morrison added that emergency scenes are not rare or extreme “edge cases” and called on autonomous-vehicle developers and operators to immediately focus resources on fixing the problem.
Zoox’s previous recalls and expansion plans
This is not Zoox’s first recall. The company voluntarily recalled vehicle software in March 2025 to address a hard-braking issue that NHTSA had been investigating since 2024. It issued two additional recalls in May 2025 after a collision with a passenger car and an incident in which a Zoox vehicle was struck by an e-scooter rider.
The recall follows broader scrutiny of how autonomous vehicles handle emergency scenes. TechCrunch previously reported that Waymo had at least six incidents as of March this year in which first responders had to physically move its robotaxis.
Zoox has been expanding testing into new cities and offering free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco ahead of a planned commercial launch. That launch depends on NHTSA granting the company an exemption from certain Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, because its robotaxis lack steering wheels and pedals. The agency has also recently proposed removing the brake-pedal requirement for vehicles built to be fully autonomous.
Frontier Editor
Dan is our resident futurist, covering electric mobility, space exploration, and the smart home. He's interested in atoms just as much as bits. Whether it's a new battery chemistry, a reusable rocket, or a protocol that finally makes IoT devices talk to each other, Dan breaks down the engineering that pushes humanity forward.
via TechCrunch
