Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company Zoox has issued a voluntary software recall for all 105 of its robotaxis after an unoccupied vehicle drove into a cloud of heavy smoke obscuring an active emergency fire scene in Las Vegas last month.
The incident occurred on June 20, when a Zoox robotaxi encountered heavy smoke from a fire that had not yet been cordoned off with traffic cones. The vehicle entered the active emergency scene, braked hard while attempting to steer away, and came to a stop inside the hazard zone. A remote teleoperations employee had to reverse the vehicle out, after which first responders placed traffic cones to secure the area. No injuries were reported.
Zoox notified the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the recall on July 8 and said the software update "enhances the existing capability of detecting active emergency scenes by adding the ability to detect and respond to heavy smoke in certain situations." The company stated this is "the only event of this kind" it has experienced.
The recall lands in a charged regulatory moment. Just one week earlier, NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison issued an unprecedented letter to autonomous vehicle developers demanding they "immediately focus their resources on fixing" interference with first responders. "Emergency scenes are not rare or extreme 'edge cases,'" Morrison wrote. "The inability to detect and appropriately respond to such situations represents a functional insufficiency."
Morrison cited a pattern of AVs driving into active emergency scenes, blocking ambulances and fire trucks, and failing to recognize flashing lights, flares, smoke, fire, and traffic cones. He ordered companies to present solutions by the end of July.
The recall is Zoox's fourth. The company previously recalled software in March 2025 over hard-braking issues and issued two more recalls in May 2025 after a collision with a passenger car and an incident with an e-scooter rider.
Zoox, which Amazon acquired for $1.3 billion in 2020, operates driverless buggies with no steering wheel or pedals in Las Vegas and San Francisco, and is testing in six other U.S. cities. The company is racing to catch Alphabet's Waymo, which dominates the U.S. robotaxi market with a fleet of about 4,000 vehicles — and which itself recalled 3,900 robotaxis last month after vehicles drove into closed construction zones.
