Weeks after her company had to recall its autonomous taxis after one of the vehicles blundered into an active fire response area, the CEO of Zoox welcomed calls for greater regulation of the industry.
“I want to unequivocally say we agree with the administrator and the administration and the regulatory agency; we need to be regulated,” Zoox CEO Aicha Evans said Monday on Fox Business.
Evans made her comments after National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Johnathan Morrison issued a call to action for autonomous vehicle developers after multiple incidents of self-driving vehicles interfering with first responders.
“Every second matters when law enforcement officers, firefighters, or paramedics are answering calls because lives are on the line,” Morrison’s letter read. “The agency has documented multiple incidents in which AVs drove directly into active emergency scenes, blocked the paths of ambulances and firefighters, or failed to recognize and respond to basic safety conditions like flashing lights, flares, smoke, fire and traffic cones.”
In June, one of Zoox’s robotaxis drove into an active fire scene in Las Vegas. The area had not been cordoned off with traffic cones, but the robotaxi did not detect heavy smoke coming from the scene.
The incident led to Zoox voluntarily recalling its entire fleet and issuing a software update to improve the capability of the vehicles to detect smoke.
“These are rare edge cases,” Evans said. “We learn and we continue to improve our processes along the way to make them better and better.”
Evans said Zoox vehicles have driven over 3 million miles nationwide and the number of incidents involving the company’s autonomous vehicles is relatively small when compared with the miles driven.
She said the issues Zoox encounters are usually resolved with software or firmware updates, or via simulation.
Zoox is operating 65 robotaxis in Las Vegas amid its launch of paid rides, with the ability to scale up to 100.
The Amazon-owned company would need approval to expand its fleet beyond 100 vehicles from the Nevada Transportation Authority, according to NTA spokeswoman Teri Williams.
Zoox has been operating in Las Vegas since 2019, based out of a 190,000-square-foot facility in the southwest valley. The company began offering free demonstration rides in its robotaxis last September and received approval to charge for rides last month when the NHTSA approved an exemption for its vehicles, which lack standard vehicle equipment such as steering wheels, brake pedals and gas pedals.
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.
