Amazon Zoox’s autonomous vehicles has issued the second recall of volunteer software in a month after a collision between a robbery and an e-scooter in San Francisco on May 8.
The latest incident included a non-occupied low-speed Zoox vehicle, which the company says was hit by the e-scooter after braking to perform at a junction.
Just a few weeks earlier, the company reminded about 270 vehicles after Las Vegas’s crash between a zoox robot and a passenger car that raised concerns about the ability of self-guiding software to predict other road users.
This issue is still alarming.
“The Zoox vehicle stopped at the time of contact”, the company statement May 8th. “The electronic scooter fell to the ground right next to the vehicle. Robotaxi started moving and stopped after the turn was completed, but did not make any further contact with the electronic scooter.”
The electronic scooter denied a medical care offer for minor injuries, according to Zoox.
Zoox said it shared relevant information and videos with regulators and has already issued an updated software to “improve monitoring of perception and further prevent vehicles from moving when a vulnerable road user may be very close to the vehicle”.
A robot that continues to move after a conflict could risk harm other users of the road involved in the crash. Just look at what happened on the cruise, the former Zoox competitor. The company backed by GM saw its business crumble after one of its robots, hit a pedestrian falling on its path from a human vehicle and then pulled the pedestrian about 20 feet while trying a sweater maneuver.
TechCrunch has come to find out if this was a top -notch concern for Zoox when it issued software recall or if there were other players playing, such as the unexpected hard brake.
In March, Zoox reminded 258 vehicles due to problems with the autonomous driving system that could cause unexpected hard braking, following two incident reports in which motorcyclists collided at the back of Zoox trial vehicles.
Zoox did not respond to TechCrunch in time to confirm more details on the latest software recall, including how many vehicles were influenced and how this update is different from the update issued several weeks ago.
TechCrunch arrived at the National Road Traffic Safety Service for more information on recall.
