I've taken a handful of sightseeing roadtrips in the US where the pattern tends to be hike/sightsee during the day, then hop in the car in the evening and drive for a few hours to get close to tomorrow's destination. It'd be great to be able to do that, except outsource the driving (and skip the hotel) by sleeping through the drive. Similar to night train travel in Europe.
Also, hotel rooms tend to offer privacy. If you do that in a vehicle people get motion sickness.
To be clear, I do think there's interesting stuff in this general area. I'm just not sure it's as a sleeper bus. The big OEMs have loads of interesting concept designs buried in their basements about similar vehicles that I wish could see the light of day.
I can picture my family of four getting on our PJs and hopping in a sleeper car on Friday night. We tell the car if we need to stop for a restroom, or anything else...
And we wake up on Saturday morning, up to eight hours away from home (were we allowed to go 90 mph? Or more?) And then we spend all day Saturday, all day Sunday, enjoying some town. Sunday night, we put on our PJs and hop in the sleeper car. We wake up Monday morning back at home, the kids go to school, and the adults go to work.
I could get to Duluth, Charleston WV, Sioux Falls, Toronto, Pittsburgh.
Wen Waymo Campervans?!
Bonelli said that the Ojai is not affected by the U.S. government's regulations that aim to prevent Chinese cars from being sold to customers in the U.S.
Possibly the Ojai is not fully assembled (therefore, not a car), or Waymo does not count as a consumer.
Also, I hope they're more comfortable than the current Jaguars. I was stuck in traffic in the back of a Waymo for almost an hour and it wasn't great. If Waymo is expanding their range, longer rides might be more common.
This all comes from an article one year ago:
https://www.wired.com/story/waymo-finds-a-way-around-us-rest...
They still have to pay a 100% tariff on the vehicle they receive, but It is probably somewhere in the realm of just $10k-$20k since they are receiving fairly stripped down vehicles.
Ah, but asking Gemini, I guess its different:
Waymo is partnering with Chinese automotive giant Geely's brand, Zeekr, to produce the new AV platform. To comply with U.S. regulations, the vehicles are imported without any built-in telematics or data-transmitting hardware/software that could pose a national security risk.
"Base Vehicles": The vehicles Waymo receives from Zeekr are essentially "gliders" or base platforms, stripped of any internal communication systems that would allow them to send data back to the manufacturer in China. U.S. Installation: All of Waymo's self-driving technology and connected components are installed after the vehicles arrive in the U.S. by authorized personnel. This means the entire "connected tech" system on board is American-owned and American-fitted, allowing Waymo to argue its vehicles fall outside the scope of U.S. Commerce Department restrictions on Chinese connected vehicles.
They still have to pay steep tariffs, but on less complete cheaper vehicles.
How does this get around the regulations? That's a massive loophole that will absolutely get abused by both China and domestic companies. Trucking, delivery vehicles, etc. will all get slammed by this.
I'm not a fan of protectionist regulations like the ones keeping Chinese automobiles out of the US, but if you're going to have them, at least make them effective.
The difference here are going to come down to differences between an unfinished product partially assembled in China and a completed vehicle imported from there and get into very detailed minutae of their value to the production system and its intended usage.
Wow, that seems like a lot of horsepower.
The 2026 Nissan Leaf, an economy car and one of the cheapest new EVs in the US at $29k, has 214hp.
EVs are incredibly powerful. Even the humble Nissan Leaf would blow the doors off an 00s performance car.
These cars are insanely, incredibly fast. My G70 (gasoline, ~370 HP) does the jaunt in 4.5. That used to be considered a fast car, now it's just average (though the warranty is almost over, and I'll be modifying it to ~450HP).
TBH, electric cars 100% broke auto enthusiast circles. When a highly modified, very fast car just gets stomped by an electric car hauling a family of 4 it smashed that world to pieces. Especially in the early days, when EV enthusiasts were mostly Tesla techbro fanboys - who didn't really mix well with the oil, grease, gasoline, and DIY culture that was there before.
Interesting times for sure.
the miata was a fun car but really lacked acceleration. A good new design would make it both fun to drive, and obscenely good at acceleration.
"The Waymo Ojai Will Soon Offer Autonomous Rides Around the Southern U.S. in areas where there is no snow."
And given how hard it is for humans to drive safely in the snow/ice, I wouldn't be surprised if they outperform humans in the snow just like they do in their current markets. Especially given that their radar sensors can "see" better in the snow than a human.
Being "better" than human in these situations will cause crashes. The real goal is to drive like a human.
The whole point of this article is that the new vehicle is better suited to more climates.
All the cities above already have service, the expansion in the title refers to the new markets that should (hopefully) be unlocked with this new vehicle.
They are testing in Detroit.
Does anybody know the general shape of it?