Zoox has grounded its autonomous vehicle test fleet in Atlanta after safety drivers were potentially exposed to carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, or hydrogen sulfide gas inside its vehicles last month, TechCrunch has learned. The repeated incidents led one worker to file a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which opened an inquiry and told Zoox to investigate the exposures. 

As many as 40 workers were possibly exposed to the gases in the vehicles, according to a letter from OSHA to Zoox that TechCrunch viewed, though the Amazon-owned company says the number is lower.  

Zoox put at least one group of workers back on the road in a different car after one vomited and the rest reported exposure symptoms, a contractor told TechCrunch. That second car may have also contained potentially toxic gases, he said, because the workers experienced another bout of exposure symptoms later that day. 

“They made us go right back in the field after we said we were throwing up,” Jay Davis, one of the contractors who got sick in mid-August, told TechCrunch in an interview. “I emailed HR, told her what’s going on, and I told her I feel like it’s messed up that y’all made us go [back out].” 

Workers reported exposure symptoms and strange smells through much of last month until August 22, when someone called 911 for a sick worker. The facility in northwest Atlanta has operated at limited capacity since then, with the test vehicles quarantined while Zoox investigated the exposures, according to two employees.

Source link