- The Chinese brand has announced three recalls for a single RT robotaxi shipped to the US.
- Zeekr built 30 RT robotaxis in December and January, but most remain in China.
- The RT is thought to be underpinned by an advanced 800-volt electrical architecture.
Zeekr doesn’t sell any of its electric vehicles in the United States and for as long as President Donald Trump remains in power, it’s unlikely it will anytime soon. However, Zeekr is behind the latest robotaxi being tested by Waymo in the US, and early this month, the Chinese company issued not one, not two, but three recalls for it on the same day.
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The Waymo robotaxi is known as the RT, of which 30 examples were built in China between December 16, 2024, and January 8, 2025, with plans to bring them into the States. One of these models landed on US shores on January 27, 2025, but upon examination, it failed to meet several Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.
Read: USA’s New Tariffs Could Hit Waymo’s Chinese-Built Robotaxis
The first recall relates to safety concerns about the inflatable curtain and passenger airbags. During front impact testing at 40 km/h (25 mph) on a 30-degree angle when occupants were unbelted, Zeekr found that the crash test dummy shifted towards the right A-pillar, and while the airbags stopped the dummy’s head, they failed to provide enough protection.
To resolve this issue, Zeekr will fit a physical stop in the passenger seat rail, reducing movement from 300 mm (11.8 inches) to 50 mm (1.9 inches).
Other Recalls
Then there’s the second recall. In this case, an issue with the Occupant Weight Sensor (OWS) can cause the airbag control module to disable the passenger airbag. The system may also be unable to correctly determine the weight of a passenger to decide whether to activate or disable the airbag. Zeekr says it will update the software of the single vehicle shipped to the US to fix the fault.
Zeekr also needs to rectify a second airbag-related issue, which was the subject of the third recall. Side-impact tests have shown the inflatable curtain airbag can get stuck on the A-pillar trim during deployment, meaning it may not completely cover the rear side window. New C-pillar chutes will be installed to rectify the fault.
The remaining 29 Zeekr RT models will be fixed at the factory before being shipped over to the US.
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