2026 Zoox Zoox Robotaxi Problems

On XXX, at 12:36 AM, a child and an adult were passengers in an autonomous Zoox vehicle operating on the [XXX]. The trip was a promotional autonomous ride from [XXX] to the [XXX] drop-off location at [XXX].Upon reaching the destination, the vehicle suffered a critical software routing failure. Instead of executing the drop-off protocol, the automated vehicle entered an infinite loop, driving in continuous circles around the property over and over again. My son has a disability and became highly distressed and panicked was crying and very scared while contained inside.While the vehicle was actively malfunctioning, I called to Zoox Customer Support from inside the cabin. The remote human agent explicitly stated over the phone: "Yes, we can see exactly what is going on with the ride." Despite this live confirmation that the vehicle was trapped in a routing glitch and me and my son were in severe distress, the remote monitoring team failed to immediately override the system, shut down the loop, or pull the vehicle over to allow a safe exit.The vehicle ultimately logged a total trip distance of 6.15 miles and a 30-minute duration (Drop-off delayed until 1:06 AM) for a standard, direct route that should have been approximately 2.3 miles and under 10 minutes. Following the incident, an automated $25.00 Starbucks gift card was issued by the operator at 5:37 AM as a standard automated response to the trip failure.a gift card doesn’t take away the trauma my son went through This safety report is being filed because a human-in-the-loop remote override system should immediately intervene when a vehicle is trapped in an operational loop. Allowing a vehicle to continuously circle with distressed passengers after verbal notification constitutes a significant autonomous vehicle safety hazard that requires federal review. Before other people get hurt INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

The Zoox was parked in the bike lane with its 4way flasher blinking. It was completely obstructing the bike lane (there was no way around it) and because it wasn’t trying to get in or out of an adjacent parking space, this was straightforwardly illegal behavior. This illegal behavior harms safety by forcing bicyclists on this very popular bike route out into mixed traffic with cars at unsafe speeds.