Is Amazon's robotaxi company trying to evade federal safety laws?
Zoox is challenging the NHTSA to test its claim.
This week, Jesse Levinson, co-founder and CTO of Zoox, announced during the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 event that the company will begin implementing its autonomous vehicles designed specifically for this purpose in San Francisco and Las Vegas in the coming weeks. However, little was mentioned about the ongoing research related to the company's claims, which is owned by Amazon, that its vehicles—shaped like large toasters and lacking traditional controls such as steering wheels and pedals—meet federal safety standards. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating Zoox's claims about its self-certification, a spokesperson confirmed this week, adding that the company has not been granted an exemption from these rules.
The NHTSA has an open analysis regarding Zoox's assertion that its vehicles are self-certified. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) require vehicles to have certain traditional controls, such as steering wheels (which include airbags), pedals, and rear-view and side mirrors. These regulations are very specific and often detail the exact position of controls down to the centimeter. Manufacturers that produce vehicles without these elements must submit applications to the government for temporary exemptions to these rules to deploy their vehicles that lack steering wheels.
Zoox, for its part, maintains that it does not need such exemptions, as it self-certifies that its vehicles comply with current safety standards. In a blog post from July 2022, the company stated that it aimed from the beginning to create a vehicle that was compliant with the FMVSS regulations within the existing regulatory framework. In November 2023, Zoox announced that it had achieved this goal, becoming the first company to self-certify a fully autonomous and electric passenger vehicle specifically designed for that purpose, according to their statements.
Although other companies have sought exemptions with varying results, such as Nuro, which received the first exemption in 2020 for its R2 delivery vehicles, Zoox also offers an innovative design. Zoox's shuttles are similar to GM's Origin vehicle, allowing travel in both directions and featuring a cabin with facing seats. Currently, the vehicles have permission from the California DMV to operate in a limited area in Foster City, where the company is headquartered.
During the event, Levinson mentioned that they will begin with employees as passengers in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco and on the Las Vegas Strip. However, safety advocates believe the company is skipping a key step in its rushed launch of a commercial service. Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, asserted that deploying these vehicles on public roads could constitute a violation of the Safety Act.
The NHTSA is responsible for enforcing its own rules and has recently begun to take a firmer stance on how it addresses autonomous vehicle operators. Currently, the NHTSA is investigating several companies, including Zoox, for alleged safety failures. If a problem is determined to exist, it could lead to a recall of the vehicles.
When asked if he was concerned that the federal government could obstruct Zoox's planned launch, Levinson reiterated that the company's vehicle is "fully compliant with FMVSS" and that they will continue to address NHTSA's concerns as they arise. The co-founder expressed confidence in his company's approach to regulations, stating that they have invested a significant amount of resources to comply with FMVSS standards and that, due to the absence of traditional manual controls, this has required interpreting the rules in a way that is relevant to a robotaxi.
