Waymo autonomous Zeekr vehicle spotted in San Francisco, California, August 14, 2025 (Smith Collection/Getty Images)

What Waymo’s new van means for Tesla

Teslas are still cheaper, but Waymos can drive without drivers.

1/8/26 8:45AM

At the Consumer Electronics Show Wednesday, Google subsidiary Waymo announced the name of its latest self-driving vehicle, a Zeekr-made van called Ojai. It’s pronounced cutely as “oh-hi,” like the town in California it’s named after, and slated to roll out across Waymo’s planned 20-plus markets this year, but its real innovation is the price: roughly $125,000, which is way cheaper than previous iterations.

The vehicle itself is made exclusively for Waymo by Geely Automobile Holdings-owned Zeekr, but a similar build retails for around $38,000, and adding the sixth-generation driverless upgrades likely tack on an additional $85,000 in cost, according to previous estimates from Morgan Stanley. That’s a lot less than the current fifth-generation Waymo, which has twice as many cameras and costs about $120,000 to $130,000 to produce on top of its more expensive Jaguar I-Pace base, which goes for around $75,000. Waymo is also currently testing its sixth-gen software on the $35,000 Hyundai Ioniq 5.

“Greatly reducing [the number of] those sensors is one big part of our ability to scale this vehicle more cost-effectively and reduce complexity in the manufacturing process,” Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli told InsideEVs.

The elephant in the room is Tesla, which has pinned its future on making its existing lineup of cars driverless with software upgrades. Morgan Stanley estimates that Tesla Robotaxis cost just a fraction of what a Waymo does, at around $36,000, and expects Cybercabs to be an even cheaper $25,000.

Of course, Robotaxis still require a safety driver to be present in its ~180 vehicles in two markets, while over 2,500 Waymos are currently driverless in five cities across the country. To stay in the lead, Waymo will have to lower its price faster than Tesla removes its safety monitors and expands its fleet.

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Waymos reportedly continuing to pass stopped school buses after earlier recall over same issue

The National Transportation Safety Board reported Tuesday that it’s looking into two recent instances of driverless Waymo vehicles passing stopped school buses. The incidents occurred after the Alphabet subsidiary filed a voluntary recall in December over similar behavior.

In the January 12 case, the NTSB says video evidence shows the Waymo vehicle initially stopped for a school bus that had its red lights flashing and stop arms extended. Three human-driven vehicles then passed the bus illegally. While stopped, the Waymo vehicle contacted a remote assistance agent located in Michigan, asking whether the bus had active signals. After the agent responded “no,” the vehicle resumed travel and passed the bus while its stop arms were still extended. No one was hurt.

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OpenAI’s new GPT-5.3 Instant: Less “cringe” tone, no more “over-caveating” responses

OpenAI has released GPT-5.3 Instant, a conversational model that the company says will have smoother conversations more to the point.

It seems OpenAI is walking back from its cautious guardrails, allowing a more permissive AI chatbot.

In a video describing the new model, a researcher explained, “People are noticing that our models can sometimes seem like a bit of a nanny.” The company describes this overcautious behavior as “over-caveating,” and this new model aims to relax a bit and let more things slide.

An example showed a question about calculations for “a really long-distance archery scenario.” The previous version of the model noted that the AI could not help with calculations that could be harmful. The new model’s response just went ahead and answered the question, without assuming any bad intent.

The researcher in the video said that these changes did not loosen safety controls, but rather just improved contextual understanding of the user’s query.

The model also features more useful web searches, which attempt to infer the context of why the user is asking the question and then tailor a more useful response. The company says results won’t appear to be just a list of links, but rather a more direct response with the information the user was looking for.

OpenAI said the new model is available today for all users of ChatGPT.

GPT-5.3 Instant: Smoother, more useful everyday conversations

The researcher in the video said that these changes did not loosen safety controls, but rather just improved contextual understanding of the user’s query.

OpenAI said the new model is available today for all users of ChatGPT.

Jon Keegan

OpenAI’s Altman: Our rushed deal with the Pentagon “looked opportunistic and sloppy”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared an internal memo in which he expressed some regrets for the bad optics of the company’s hasty deal with the Pentagon, and outlined new additions that were made to the agreement.

Jerome Powell and Sam Altman Speak At Federal Reserve's Regulatory Capital Framework Conference

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The vast majority of Tesla Robotaxi rides in Austin still have a safety driver

In January, Tesla announced its Robotaxis would begin operating without safety monitors. It doesn’t appear to have scaled up much.

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Apple updates Mac chips and amps up AI claims

Apple’s new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are the latest step in its steady silicon march: faster CPUs, stronger graphics, more memory bandwidth. The 30% CPU performance increase is meaningful but incremental — not the kind of leap that accompanied the original M1 transition from Intel.

What’s more notable is how aggressively Apple is framing this around AI. The company is touting up to 4x higher peak GPU compute for AI workloads and the ability to run larger models locally, leaning hard into the on-device AI narrative as it positions the MacBook Pro as a more capable personal AI development machine.

It may be paying off in unexpected ways, as the explosion of interest in roll-your-own AI agents like Moltbot have made low-cost Macs like the MacMini a hot item.

Apple debuts M5 Pro and M5 Max to supercharge the most demanding pro workflows