Zoox recalls 105 robotaxis after one drove blind into a wall of smoke

Zoox recalled 105 robotaxis after one entered heavy smoke at a Las Vegas fire scene without detecting the hazard; NHTSA identified the issue as the automated driving system's failure to treat smoke as a low-visibility emergency, forcing the company to update software to recognise heavy smoke independently of formal hazard markers like cones. If you're building perception or safety systems for autonomous vehicles, you've just seen what regulators now treat as table-stakes: vehicles that can't read an emergency scene without painted lines and cones won't get city clearance. Zoox's four recalls in 18 months tell you NHTSA is moving from permissive to prescriptive - the next vendor to miss smoke, not cones, loses their operating permits.