Zoox Updates Software After San Francisco Incident
So, Amazon's self-driving car company, Zoox, just put out another software update. This is the second one, you know? They're trying to make their cars better at seeing people walking nearby and, like, not moving if someone is really close. This all happened 'cause of a little fender bender they had in San Francisco earlier this month.
They told the government about it, saying the update is for 270 of their cars with the self-driving stuff in them. What happened was on May 8th, someone on an electric scooter was turning slowly at an intersection and bumped into an empty Zoox robotaxi. The person on the scooter got a few bumps and fell next to the car. Then, the car started to move a little bit, but stopped before it hit them again, which is good, I guess.
Because of that, Zoox actually paused their testing on the roads for a bit to check things out. They said this new software fix will help with that problem where the car is stopped or going super slow, or just about to start moving again, and a person is nearby. Sometimes, in weird situations, they said the car might start moving without realizing the person is still there. Wild, huh?
After the incident, they totally stopped their driverless cars. Then they did the software update and tested it out with simulations and stuff. They started driving on the roads again last week. Just so you know, they own all these cars; you can't buy them yet.
Zoox has been testing these self-driving cars on public roads since 2023 in places like California and Nevada. Last year, they even started testing in Florida and Texas. Right now, you can see their test cars around the Bay Area, including San Francisco, and also in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, Austin, and Miami.
Before this, earlier this month, Zoox did another software recall for the same 270 cars after an empty robotaxi crashed into another car in Las Vegas back in April. And get this, in April, the government closed an investigation into 258 Zoox cars because of a braking issue. Zoox had already recalled those cars to update the software for that problem too. Seems like they're still working out some kinks, right?
