Zoox Robotaxis Do Not Meet Federal Safety Standards, Agency Says (washingtonpost.com) 41
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: An Amazon-backed self-driving taxi failed to meet vehicle safety standardsbecause it lacks basics like a brake pedal and rearview mirrors, according to a report by federal inspectors that raises questions about the industry's plans to put a new generation of autonomous vehicles on U.S. roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report was produced as part of a review last year of an unusual vehicle by Amazon subsidiary Zoox that, without a steering wheel or other human controls, has no way for a person to drive. Zoox has asserted that the vehicle's technology, backed by artificial intelligence, complies with the agency's standards. But the NHTSA report documents "apparent noncompliances" with eight safety rules.
The contents of the previously undisclosed review suggest that rules written when autonomous vehicles were the stuff of futuristic musings pose a legal impediment to the industry's ambitions, even as plans for self-driving vehicles accelerate. Zoox has a small pilot fleet on the roads in California and Nevada and says it has completed thousands of trips carrying employees and guests. It is finalizing plans to launch public service in Las Vegas this year. [...] By documenting the apparent noncompliances of the Zoox, NHTSA could be setting the table for a recall, under agency procedures. It is unclear whether the Trump administration will attempt a change in course. The agency said it remains in discussion with Zoox and was "considering all options."
Zoox could have sought an exemption from the safety rules, but NHTSA has never granted one to an autonomous passenger vehicle. Instead, the company self-certified that its vehicle complied with the rules as it raced to be the first company to put a purpose-built robotaxi on the road and claim a share of what could become a multi trillion-dollar market. Zoox's vehicle bears little resemblance to a normal car. The plan is for customers to summon a ride using an app, much like a regular ride-hailing vehicle, getting in through bus-like doors and sitting facing one another. The vehicle navigates itself, seeing the world through a set of cameras and laser-based sensors. It largely relies on its own abilities to drive, but the company says teams of remote operators can seize control to help handle unusual situations. Passengers can call for assistance via a touch screen and open the doors using an emergency release. "We will continue to support transportation technology innovation while maintaining the safety of America's roads," NHTSA said in a statement.
"Our recent discussions with NHTSA are about mirrors, windshield wipers, a defroster, and a foot-activated brake pedal -- equipment that makes sense for vehicles with human drivers, but not for the Zoox purpose-built robotaxi," Zoox said in a statement. "Our purpose-built design means that the robotaxi can never be operated by a human driver, and our AI driver doesn't rely on this equipment to view the world."
The contents of the previously undisclosed review suggest that rules written when autonomous vehicles were the stuff of futuristic musings pose a legal impediment to the industry's ambitions, even as plans for self-driving vehicles accelerate. Zoox has a small pilot fleet on the roads in California and Nevada and says it has completed thousands of trips carrying employees and guests. It is finalizing plans to launch public service in Las Vegas this year. [...] By documenting the apparent noncompliances of the Zoox, NHTSA could be setting the table for a recall, under agency procedures. It is unclear whether the Trump administration will attempt a change in course. The agency said it remains in discussion with Zoox and was "considering all options."
Zoox could have sought an exemption from the safety rules, but NHTSA has never granted one to an autonomous passenger vehicle. Instead, the company self-certified that its vehicle complied with the rules as it raced to be the first company to put a purpose-built robotaxi on the road and claim a share of what could become a multi trillion-dollar market. Zoox's vehicle bears little resemblance to a normal car. The plan is for customers to summon a ride using an app, much like a regular ride-hailing vehicle, getting in through bus-like doors and sitting facing one another. The vehicle navigates itself, seeing the world through a set of cameras and laser-based sensors. It largely relies on its own abilities to drive, but the company says teams of remote operators can seize control to help handle unusual situations. Passengers can call for assistance via a touch screen and open the doors using an emergency release. "We will continue to support transportation technology innovation while maintaining the safety of America's roads," NHTSA said in a statement.
"Our recent discussions with NHTSA are about mirrors, windshield wipers, a defroster, and a foot-activated brake pedal -- equipment that makes sense for vehicles with human drivers, but not for the Zoox purpose-built robotaxi," Zoox said in a statement. "Our purpose-built design means that the robotaxi can never be operated by a human driver, and our AI driver doesn't rely on this equipment to view the world."
Who needs brake pedals if you got lawyers? (Score:2, Troll)
A big team of lawyers are a much better substitute for all these so-called safety measures when pedestrians do dumb stuff like crossing the road.
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It's almost as though the federal inspectors forgot about profits and share prices.
Confused (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Confused (Score:4, Informative)
So that it can be operated by a human when the self driving equipment fails, or in an emergency.
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Passsengers (Score:2)
Is the passenger expected to climb into the driver's seat to operate this pedal?
It's an autonomous car, there is no driver's seat, only passenger seats. However, generally any autonomous thing has some sort of E-Stop button.
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So there has to be a human there in the event the pedal needs to be operated?
Yes, unless they have demonstrated their safety. At least, that's how it is in sane jurisdictions.
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You also need a human to wave the big red flag and fire a pistol in the air at regular intervals to warn the horses that a motorised carriage is approaching.
You joke, but that was a thing that made sense at the time. Just like having a human ability to take over and drive an autonomous vehicle makes sense today, but is unlikely to be relevant in 20 years.
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The robo taxi needs two things, a "park and open door as soon as as safe" button, and the Big Red Emergency Shutdown button that immediately kills all power and opens the doors.
A very large ax for emergency reprogramming of the GPP might also be helpful.
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Please consider the effect of hitting the Big Red Emergency Shutdown button in the middle of a high speed freeway...
I see more misuse of it then anything, whether by intentional action just just another stupid human panicking
IMO it is just ironic for a human to demand the right to screw everything up, in order to feel safe, when self driving cars are many times safer than humans in the first place
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I think there needs to be an entirely self-contained and autonomous routine, triggerable by riders in the vehicle, which cause the vehicle to come to a safe stop as quickly as possible.
The reason is I think that a fleet of autonomous vehicles directed by a central network of servers would be the juiciest target in the history of hacking.
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Ah, yes, time to fire up the ol' ROM reprogrammer
Re: Confused (Score:2)
Well, politicians are noble so it can't be due to lobbying ($$$) by every single taxi/uber/ride share company in the nation, can it?
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Why does an autonomous vehicle need a pedal?
Because amazon and its other companies are not infallible.
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If the self driving aspect works there still needs to be an "Emergency Stop" button or cord, but having it in the form of a pedal seems inappropriate as you really don't want someone hitting it when you're barreling down the interstate at 75mph together with traffic going at a similar speed unless there really is an emergency.
Of course, the "if" at the beginning of that sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Has Zoox actually created a self driving system that's at least safer than the average huma
A bit of a silly design (Score:5, Funny)
Even a JohnnyCab has a joystick which a person can use to drive. Well, after ripping out the robot driver... but, still...
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The intentional construct for an action movie hardly satisfies a real-world need for safe transportation
I don't want a Johnny Cab (Score:2)
If safety is your concern... (Score:2, Interesting)
Waymo's driverless vehicles have reduced injury claims by 100 percent compared to human drivers, with an incident rate of 0.41 per million miles, which is 6.8 times lower than human drivers.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
Re:If safety is your concern... (Score:4, Insightful)
Waymo's driverless vehicles have reduced injury claims by 100 percent compared to human drivers, with an incident rate of 0.41 per million miles, which is 6.8 times lower than human drivers.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
Not a valid comparison. Most human accidents involve alcohol or some other impairment, nighttime driving, or rural driving. Thus, the distribution is heavily skewed across the entire population of drivers, i.e., the comparson with the mean is very different than with the median. A better comparison would be against human drivers without impairments and who don't drive when most people are sleeping (yes, Waymo offers rides 24/7, but the composite numbers are dominated by non-nighttime rides). Better yet, the comparison should be with human taxi drivers.
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Definitely human taxi drivers in the same city would be the best comparison, though I believe the wayno is geofenced so you'd have to do a little more trimming the taxi data.
I'd be surprised if such data doesn't actually exist though, with how regulated traditional cabs are.
I wouldn't mind seeing a comparison to ride share too, and that data definitely exists.
I'm surprised cities aren't requiring traditional cabs and ride share to provide information publicly like the driverless, it'd be a pretty useful way
Re:If safety is your concern... (Score:4, Informative)
Definitely human taxi drivers in the same city would be the best comparison,
False. Waymo avoids difficult intersections, sometimes taking a circuitous route that takes 15 minutes longer. They can also avoid certain types of weather, times of day, etc.
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But we have all that data exists for Uber and cabs too (maybe not intersection avoidance, but the amount of time each block is traversed and in what weather and the accidents).
The fact that Google isn't pushing for laws that make all paid ride services publish this data to me means they pretty clearly don't think they'd come out ahead.
As it is they aggregate data in a way that makes them look good.
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Still an order of magnitude safer. 4.6 per million miles vs .41 for waymo.
Taxis were involved in 4.6 crashes per million miles.. All vehicles on the road (private and commercial) had a crash rate of 6.7.Dec 30, 2024
https://ridesharelawoffice.com... [ridesharelawoffice.com]
Re: If safety is your concern... (Score:2)
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A better comparison would be against human drivers without impairments
No it wouldn't be, because human nature shows that a portion of drivers are still impaired at some point. Even if you don't drink and drive you just need to see any article on Slashdot about EV range to see the number of people who don't realise that objectively we've scientifically proven you are impaired in as little as 2 hours of continuous driving. And a dead or injured person really couldn't give a shit if the person causing their injury was impaired or not.
When comparing anything against humans it mak
"multi trillion-dollar market" (Score:2)
The whole world taxi economy is something like $250B usd. Are they suggesting automation will claim it all and grow that market by a minimum of 8x and presumably more?
Their Claims (Score:3)
The robo car companies are saying that that they will replace all cars on the road. So, yes. They do want us to believe that they will minimum 8x the market.
Meanwhile, there is zero chance of me getting into one of these butt ugly Zoox boxes. Not even for campus or airport shuttle service. There is also the issue of convincing people to give up the sense of freedom and autonomy that they enjoy in their personal vehicles. So, robo car companies have got their work cut out for them. Both technology work and m
This was a manufactured story (Score:3)
So the only reasonable conclusion is Amazon wanted this article. Presumably to take to Jeff's new master and beg for rules changes, instead of doing it the way little people are supposed to.
Not Yet (Score:4, Insightful)
What is Bezos's angle? (Score:2)
It's the WaPo. Anything they say, he has to be cool with.
Clearing the visual sensors for the "AI" driver? (Score:2)
Human passengers should not be allowed control (Score:2)
Well (Score:3)
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There is, it's called a tow truck. Since software updates never occur while the vehicle is in motion and tow trucks are the standard for dealing with an illegally parked vehicle we have that covered already.
Translation for the New USA (Score:2)
> The agency said it remains in discussion with Zoox and was "considering all options."
i.e., Waiting for the bribe^h^h^h tip.
They get stuck quite a lot (Score:1)
I work in Foster City so I see the Johnny Cabs and the camera-bedecked SUVs on the road a lot. Multiple times seen the automatons stuck at junctions, sometimes less than half a mile a way from Zoox HQ, where they should know the road. That might partly be due to the SUV "trainers" who seem to be abysmally bad drivers (weaving and cutting lanes). I always give them a wide berth. I would not trust my family in those things.