Lexus's First Three-Row EV

The TZ was first previewed as a concept in late 2021 and officially unveiled on May 7, 2026, under Lexus's "Driving Lounge" concept — an attempt, the company says, to balance a quiet, lounge-like three-row cabin with the responsive handling Lexus buyers expect. It shares its underlying e-TNGA platform with the upcoming Toyota Highlander BEV and Subaru's electric three-row (recently renamed Getaway), but Lexus is positioning the TZ as the more refined sibling, with retuned suspension, dynamic rear-wheel steering, and a reinforced body structure.

Despite launching after its Toyota and Subaru siblings were first shown, the TZ is arriving to US showrooms first, with initial deliveries beginning in late 2026.

Specifications and Pricing

Horsepower figures have varied across Lexus's own announcements as the TZ moved from reveal to production — early communications cited up to 402-420 hp combined, while some outlets now report a finalized 308 hp for the dual-motor TZ450e. Treat power output as provisional until Lexus publishes a final production spec sheet.

Design and Cabin

Lexus describes the TZ's exterior as "conveying strength" through an elongated silhouette, built around the brand's current design language — double L-shaped headlights, a spindle-style front, and an L-shaped rear lightbar. Aerodynamic details include flush door handles, aero mirrors, underbody fins, and air dams, all aimed at cutting wind noise and extending range.

Inside, the "Driving Lounge" concept centers on an open, quiet cabin: a panoramic glass roof with a wire-driven power sunshade designed to preserve headroom for third-row passengers, an adhesive-free seat assembly structure as part of Lexus's push toward more circular manufacturing, and the latest generation of Lexus Interface infotainment paired with Lexus Safety System+ 4.0 as standard equipment.

Where It Lands in the Market

At just over $64,000 to start, the TZ undercuts rivals like the Volvo EX90 ($78,090) while costing more than the Hyundai IONIQ 9 ($60,555) — positioning it as a mid-tier premium option among three-row electric SUVs rather than the cheapest or most expensive choice. Given its shared platform with the Toyota Highlander BEV, expected to start in the mid-$50,000 range, the roughly $10,000 premium buys the Lexus badge, the retuned chassis, and the extra cabin refinement Lexus is emphasizing.

With pricing now locked in and deliveries beginning before the end of 2026, the TZ becomes Lexus's clearest answer yet to the three-row luxury EV segment — leaning on shared Toyota Group bones but wrapping them in enough brand-specific engineering and cabin theater, down to a fake V10 soundtrack, to make the case for paying extra over its mechanical siblings.

Four years in the making

Ceer was set up in 2022 as a joint venture between Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer best known for assembling iPhones. The name means roughly "drive forward" in Arabic, and the brand sits at the centre of Vision 2030's push to build a domestic automotive industry rather than simply import one.

The EXOBOT pair are Ceer's first production vehicles and will be built at the Ceer Manufacturing Complex in King Abdullah Economic City, which the company describes as the Middle East's largest car plant. They are the first two of seven models planned by 2030, with the later cars expected to move down into compact and midsize segments with a wider mix of powertrains.

Design: a wedge with a message

Nobody will mistake the EXOBOT for anything else on the road. Both body styles share a razor-sharp wedge profile, a thin horizontal light signature and a 2.4-metre windscreen raked at just 15 degrees. Ceer says the shapes draw on desert landscapes and the Nabataean rock architecture of Hegra.

The party piece is the Shahin Wing Doors, named after the falcon. Each door is almost three metres long, swings upward through a compact 60 cm arc and opens both rows at once. The lighting uses 32 elements — a nod to 1932, the year the Kingdom was unified.

These are big cars. Both ride on a 3,200 mm wheelbase and are about 2.1 metres wide, with the sedan stretching to 5.26 metres and the SUV to 5.02 metres.

Powertrain, range and charging

Launch versions — badged First Edition and Plus — use a tri-motor all-wheel-drive setup rated at 850 hp and 1,000 Nm, fed by a 112 kWh NCM battery on an 800V electrical architecture. DC fast charging peaks at 250 kW, good for 10–80% in under 30 minutes, while AC charging runs at 11 kW.

Ceer has also announced a higher-output configuration with 1,111 hp and 1,500 Nm, though it has not yet said which trim will carry it.

EXOBOT sedan vs SUV: key figures

Built for Gulf roads — and Gulf summers

Both models get dual-chamber air suspension, rear-wheel steering and steer-by-wire operated through a yoke. Ceer says the system cuts lock-to-lock steering input from around 400 degrees to 160.

Heat management gets unusual attention. A Halo Cooling system is claimed to bring a 65 °C cabin down to 32 °C in ten minutes, helped by triple silver-coated glass and cooled storage in the console and boot. The lower door glass can switch between clear and opaque at the press of a button. 

Cabin tech highlights

• Main display: 48-inch 8K pillar-to-pillar "Digital Horizon" screen
• Controls: 10.4-inch central touchscreen, 8-inch rear display, physical keys for gear, climate and volume
• Assistant: Arabic and English voice control, 3D navigation with EV route planning
• Comfort: four-zone climate, ventilated front and rear seats, fragrance system
• Safety: seven airbags, AEB, adaptive cruise with lane centring, surround-view cameras, remote parking
• Coming via OTA by 2028: automatic lane changes, Highway and Traffic Jam Pilot, Navigate on Pilot

First Edition, warranty and timing

The range opens with the EXOBOT First Edition, finished in Harrat Grey or White Musk with black detailing, red calipers and a black-and-red Nappa cabin. Each car carries a numbered plaque tied to its VIN. The more configurable EXOBOT Plus follows.

Ownership terms are generous: a six-year/200,000 km vehicle warranty, eight-year/200,000 km battery cover, six years of servicing and roadside assistance, plus up to SAR 2,000 towards a home charger. Pricing has not been announced. Saudi deliveries are expected from early 2027, with neighbouring markets following from 2028. There is no word on Europe or the US.

Why it matters

For the Gulf, the EXOBOT is as much an industrial statement as a car. Ceer is targeting 45% locally sourced materials by 2034, and its success will be a test of whether sovereign money and Foxconn's manufacturing know-how can create a credible new automaker from scratch — something Western startups have found brutally hard.

Ceer has opened with a halo car rather than a volume seller. The EXOBOT proves Saudi Arabia can design something bold; the harder test comes when the compact models arrive and have to compete on price with BYD, Geely and the rest of a crowded Gulf EV market.

1. Tesla Optimus (Gen 3)

Still the most-watched name in humanoid robotics, even without a commercial product to point to. Tesla has converted former Model S/X production lines at Fremont toward Optimus and broken ground on a dedicated Giga Texas facility, with Elon Musk targeting eventual production in the millions of units per year. Reality has lagged the ambition badly — 2025's plan called for 5,000 units and delivered only hundreds — but Optimus remains the industry's bellwether simply because of Tesla's manufacturing scale and vertical integration.

Status: Pre-production, internal factory use only  |  Est. price: $20,000-$30,000 target, not yet public

2. Figure 03 (Figure AI)

The first general-purpose humanoid on a genuine paid commercial contract: an initial fleet of around 40 units works BMW's Spartanburg plant, billed at roughly $25 per robot-operating-hour. Figure's predecessor, the 02, helped build over 30,000 BMW X3s before being retired in favor of the 03. Figure's Helix vision-language-action model is widely seen as one of the strongest AI stacks in the field, and the company recently signed a partnership with Nscale for access to up to 100,000 Nvidia GPUs to keep training it.

Status: Commercial fleet deployment  |  Price: ~$25/robot-hour, enterprise only

3. Atlas (Boston Dynamics)

The fully electric Atlas remains the industry's technical benchmark for dynamic mobility, and it now has the deployment scale to match: Hyundai, which owns Boston Dynamics, announced plans in May 2026 to put more than 25,000 Atlas units across Hyundai and Kia plants by 2028. That's the single largest committed humanoid rollout in the industry.

Status: In production, booked out through 2026  |  Price: $140,000+ during the pilot phase

4. Digit (Agility Robotics)

Digit holds one of the field's longest continuous deployment records, working real shifts in Amazon warehouses rather than staged demonstrations. Agility's RoboFab production facility is reportedly running at capacity, and the company is expanding to multiple customers beyond Amazon. For anyone wanting proven logistics-floor performance over flashy specs, Digit remains the safe, evidence-backed choice.

Status: Commercial deployment  |  Price: Robots-as-a-service, no public list price

5. Apollo (Apptronik)

Backed by Google and Mercedes-Benz at a valuation near $5.5 billion, Apptronik's Apollo is deployed in pilots at Mercedes-Benz, GXO Logistics, and Jabil facilities. It runs on Nvidia's GR00T AI foundation, lifts around 25 kg, and uses hot-swappable four-hour battery packs to keep shifts running without long downtime.

Status: Commercial pilots  |  Price: ~$80,000/year targeted by 2027

6. Unitree G1

The best-selling humanoid on the planet, and the clearest evidence that China has won the volume race. At 127 cm tall and priced from roughly $16,000, the G1 sold around 5,500 units last year with Unitree expecting 10,000-20,000 in 2026. It's not built for heavy industrial work, but as an open, orderable developer and research platform, nothing else comes close on price.

Status: Shipping, currently backordered  |  Price: From ~$13,500-$16,000

7. Unitree H2

The full-size sibling to the G1, built for commercial and education use at roughly a third the price of Western industrial humanoids. The H2 holds records for humanoid sprint speed and dynamic balance, and ships today rather than sitting in a pilot program.

Status: Shipping  |  Price: $29,900

8. Walker S2 (UBTECH)

UBTECH's Walker S2 has moved into genuine mass production for industrial customers, targeting round-the-clock shift work rather than single-task demos. It's one of the clearest signs that China's humanoid ecosystem extends well beyond Unitree into dedicated industrial-grade hardware.

Status: Mass production  |  Price: Enterprise, not publicly listed

9. NEO (1X Technologies)

Still the only credible option built specifically for the home rather than the factory floor. At around 30 kg and roughly 165-168 cm tall, NEO is available to preorder for $20,000 outright or $499 a month, with US deliveries promised through 2026 — though none had been confirmed as of this writing. 1X says basic tasks can run autonomously while unfamiliar ones fall back to remote human supervision.

Status: Preorder, field testing  |  Price: $20,000 or $499/month

10. AgiBot A2

AgiBot rounds out the list as one of China's fastest-moving multi-vertical players, with the A2 already in mass production for service and reception roles. Alongside Unitree, AgiBot is frequently cited as furthest along among Chinese humanoid makers on both hardware maturity and commercial rollout.

Status: Mass production  |  Price: Contact sales

Quick Comparison

Honorable mentions

• Fourier GR-3 — healthcare and care-focused humanoid shipping to B2B customers from roughly $27,500.
• Kepler K2 Bumblebee — Chinese industrial humanoid in mass production at around $34,000.
• MagicLab MagicBot D1 / Gen1 — wheeled industrial and bilingual service humanoids recently showcased at IFA 2026.

The field has clearly split into archetypes rather than a single leaderboard: Atlas wins on raw mobility and deployment scale, Figure on AI sophistication, Unitree on price-to-capability, and 1X on being the only real home option. Which one is "best" now depends entirely on what job you're hiring a robot to do.

EHang Leans on Global Expansion as China Delays Cool

EHang used its Q2 2026 earnings call this week to acknowledge that domestic momentum has stalled. A serious accident involving a piloted light-sport aircraft in China at the end of June pushed regulators toward tighter safety oversight, delaying approvals for domestic human-carrying commercial operations — and EHang has withdrawn its full-year revenue guidance as a result.

The company is compensating by pushing hard overseas and into non-passenger revenue. It's expanding into aerial firefighting, logistics, and drone media shows domestically, while accelerating its "Global Fast Track Program" abroad. In August, its EH216-S completed Central Asia's first pilotless human-carrying eVTOL flight in Astana, Kazakhstan, carrying the country's Minister of Transport during the Games of the Future 2026. In Thailand, EHang says it expects an experimental flying permit in Q3 and a formal commercial operation certificate by year-end.

Joby Doubles Down on Manufacturing Ahead of Dubai

Joby Aviation is investing to double its US manufacturing capacity, targeting production of four aircraft per month by 2027. The buildout supports Joby's exclusive air taxi agreement in Dubai, where the company has partnered with UK-based Skyports to build four vertiport sites — near Dubai International Airport, Dubai Mall, the Atlantis the Royal resort, and American University in Dubai — ahead of a planned 2026 service launch.

Joby has also disclosed more than $1 billion in potential aircraft and service sales, and joined the White House's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), which aims to get air taxi operations running in US cities ahead of full FAA type certification.

China's Startup Field Keeps Growing

DreamFly, a Chinese eVTOL developer following a "cargo-first, passenger-second" strategy, said this week it raised hundreds of millions of yuan in a Series A+ round, bringing its cumulative funding to nearly 800 million yuan (roughly $119 million). It's the latest sign that China's eVTOL field extends well beyond EHang, with multiple domestic players racing on both cargo and passenger applications.

Regulators and Infrastructure Are Catching Up

• A Worldwide AAM/UAM Routes and Programmes Guide now counts 284 eVTOL-based infrastructure and route-planning programmes underway across 66 countries.
• AirVenture 2026 featured the aviation industry's first dedicated Vertical Lift Center, built with the Experimental Aircraft Association, Robinson Helicopter, and Vertical Aviation International — a sign eVTOLs are being folded into general aviation's regulatory framework via the MOSAIC certification pathway.
• EUROCAE has produced the ED-342 standard for using simulation as a means of compliance in EASA VTOL handling-qualities certification.
• UK-based SkyFly Technologies is developing the Axe, an all-electric two-seat VTOL with roughly 100 miles of range, alongside the Longbow, a hybrid-electric autonomous logistics aircraft rated to carry 200 kg up to 400 miles.

The pattern across this week's news is consistent: certification and safety oversight remain the industry's real bottleneck, not the aircraft themselves. Companies with global footprints — EHang and Joby chief among them — are increasingly routing around slow domestic approvals by launching first wherever regulators move fastest, from Kazakhstan to Dubai.

What the Qiji X1 Actually Is

DaxAI Robotics unveiled its Qiji lineup — officially the Qiji "All-Terrain Intelligent Mount" — at the World Robot Conference in Beijing on August 19, 2026, and crowds watched riders climb into the saddle and steer it across a track of gravel, timber, and other obstacles. It looks like a cross between a robotic dog and a motorcycle: a dark grey, motorcycle-sized machine that strides on four mechanical legs, with a rider seated on top gripping handlebars.

DaxAI is pitching it as more than a novelty. The company frames the Qiji as suited to off-road transport, heavy-load carrying, and emergency rescue work in places wheeled vehicles can't reach — mountain trails, forests, and open fields.

Specifications

Figures reflect the most widely corroborated specs across launch-day coverage; some outlets report differing weight, speed, and price figures, so treat exact numbers as approximate ahead of an official spec sheet from DaxAI.

Meet the Lineup: X1 vs. XS

DaxAI launched two variants side by side. The Qiji X1 is the pure-legged model described above, while the Qiji XS is a wheel-legged version that can switch between walking on its legs and rolling on wheels, aimed at faster travel on smoother terrain. The XS carries the same 300 kg dynamic load rating but starts higher, at roughly RMB 359,000 (~$53,000).

• Qiji X1 — pure quadruped, legs only, built for rough, uneven terrain
• Qiji XS — wheel-legged hybrid, weighs about 320 kg, switches between walking and rolling, quoted at up to 40 km/h in wheeled mode
• Both models share DaxAI's electric drive and joint-actuator hardware, adapted from motorcycle and quadruped-robot components

Not the First to Try — But the First to Ship

DaxAI isn't the only company chasing the rideable-robot idea. Kawasaki Heavy Industries has its Corleo concept, a hydrogen-powered, two-seat robotic mount unveiled as a concept vehicle, with Kawasaki targeting a commercial launch only by 2035. The Qiji X1, by contrast, is already taking orders and moving toward production this year — putting DaxAI years ahead of that timeline, even if the Qiji's price and rough-terrain focus target a narrower buyer than a mass-market vehicle.

The Qiji X1 turns "rideable robot horse" from a trade-show gimmick into a product with a price tag and an order page. It won't outrun an actual horse, let alone a motorcycle, but as a signal of how fast quadruped robotics is moving from warehouses and factory floors into things a person can climb onto and ride, it's hard to top.

A Long Time Coming

The Range Rover Electric's waitlist opened back in late 2023 and drew more than 61,000 names, but JLR pushed the on-sale date from its original late-2025 target into 2026. The delay was blamed partly on softer global EV demand and partly on a severe cyberattack that hit JLR's production systems starting August 31, 2025, halting manufacturing worldwide for over a month and contributing to a reported £559 million quarterly loss.

Now built alongside its combustion siblings at JLR's Solihull plant in the UK, the electric Range Rover is finally shipping — and JLR is positioning it not as a stripped-down EV variant, but as, in the company's words, the most accomplished Range Rover it has ever built.

Specifications

How Its Range Stacks Up

The Range Rover Electric's headline number — a nearly 120 kWh battery — is genuinely huge, but its EPA range doesn't lead the luxury electric SUV pack. Rivals with smaller or similarly sized packs post longer estimated ranges, a sign of how much efficiency still separates a legacy automaker's first EV platform from purpose-built rivals.

What's New, What's Familiar

Visually, JLR kept changes subtle. The Electric is nearly indistinguishable from the fifth-generation combustion Range Rover that launched in late 2021 — a slipperier grille and new alloy wheels are about the extent of the exterior redesign, together trimming the drag coefficient by just 0.01 Cd. The cabin carries over largely unchanged too, aside from EV-specific graphics with AI-assisted range prediction and over-the-air battery updates.

Where JLR clearly did put in the work is refinement: the electric model runs about 7 dBA quieter under full throttle than the V8, and the brand is leaning hard into "Rolls-Royce-like" hush as a selling point over outright EV specs.

Pros

• Genuine V8-rivaling power (405 kW) with none of the combustion noise or vibration
• Massive 118.5 kWh battery and 350 kW charging keep road-trip stops reasonable
• Full Range Rover capability retained, including 35-inch wading depth
• Priced close to the V8 Autobiography rather than at a steep EV premium
• 61,000+ pre-orders show strong demand despite the delay

Cons

• EPA range trails newer rivals like the Escalade IQ and Lucid Gravity by well over 100 miles
• Arrives roughly five years after Range Rover first previewed electrification plans
• Exterior and interior design carry over almost unchanged from the combustion model

The Range Rover Electric isn't trying to win a range or efficiency contest — it's betting that buyers who already want a Range Rover will pay for one that's quieter, just as capable off-road, and finally electric. Whether that's enough against faster-charging, longer-range rivals will become clear as the first deliveries reach customers.

The launch caps roughly a year of testing on Denver's streets, including cold-weather validation for the city's winter conditions. Waymo's initial service area covers about 60 square miles, stretching from Cory-Merrill to North Washington and Villa Park to City Park — taking in downtown, RiNo, Capitol Hill, Cherry Creek, and venues like Coors Field, Ball Arena, and Empower Field at Mile High.

Access is rolling out gradually rather than to everyone at once. Tens of thousands of Denver residents had already joined the waitlist ahead of launch day, and Waymo says riders will be invited in phases as the fleet scales up. Denver International Airport is not part of the initial coverage area, though Waymo has said airport service is planned for a future expansion.

The vehicles serving Denver are built on Waymo's sixth-generation platform, nicknamed Ojai, which the company says brings larger cabin screens and more rear legroom than earlier generations.

• Launch date: Tuesday, September 1, 2026
• Initial coverage: ~60 square miles of central Denver
• Simultaneous launches: San Diego and Tampa
• Access: rolling invitations from an existing waitlist
• Airport service: not yet included, planned for later expansion

The rollout hasn't been without friction. Colorado taxi and rideshare drivers have challenged part of Waymo's state permitting, and a recent multi-vehicle crash pushed another car into a stopped Waymo. Public sentiment is also mixed — a Colorado Polling Institute survey last month found 58% of non-riders said they were unlikely to try a self-driving taxi, versus 32% who said they were likely to.

Denver becomes Waymo's latest — and coldest-climate — commercial market, testing whether the company's driverless tech can hold up through a full Rocky Mountain winter while it keeps expanding its US footprint city by city.

What the Q-Truck Is

Developed by Westwell under its Qomolo autonomous-driving brand, the Q-Truck is a purpose-built, full-time autonomous new-energy commercial vehicle for container logistics. Rather than automating a normal tractor unit, Westwell removed the driver's cab entirely — the front end houses only the computing, sensing, cooling, and battery systems. Westwell calls it the world's first mass-produced unmanned commercial vehicle, and it has been in commercial operation since 2020.

That cabless layout isn't just styling. Dropping the cab frees up cargo space and lets the vehicle be optimized purely around the sensor suite, battery pack, and swap mechanism, since no human ever needs to see out of it or climb inside.

Specifications

Specs reflect the current-generation Q-Truck as marketed by Westwell and reported in fleet deployments; battery swap time and load figures vary slightly by source and deployment site.

How the Q-Truck Has Evolved

Westwell has iterated the Q-Truck through several hardware generations since its 2020 debut, steadily pushing range and payload as battery and control systems matured.

Range has followed a similar pattern: early units were rated around 200 km, while the fourth-generation trucks in current fleet service settle at 150 km per charge — likely a trade-off tuned for real-world duty cycles and battery-swap-first operation rather than a straight regression.

Autonomy and Safety Systems

The Q-Truck's autonomous stack runs on Westwell's WellDrive platform, combining sensor fusion, positioning, planning, and control for around-the-clock operation with high-precision control in tight, complex yards.

• Multi-sensor fusion: LiDAR, a Westwell proprietary long-range binocular camera, and multiple monocular cameras for 360° monitoring
• Perception continues to track surroundings even when the tractor and trailer are decoupled
• Precision docking in enclosed logistics roads under 3 m wide
• Redundant braking and dual power supplies with SOH monitoring on low-voltage batteries
• EHPS dual-source steering pumps to eliminate single-point steering failure
• EBS and EPB systems providing complementary braking redundancy
• Power-off redundant protection for a safe stop during power loss
• Four emergency stop buttons positioned around the vehicle exterior
• Impact-sensing collision beams that respond and stop on contact within milliseconds

Pros

• Proven at commercial scale — in service since 2020 across five countries
• Cabless design maximizes cargo space and removes cab-related cost and complexity entirely
• Fast battery swapping keeps utilization high without long charging downtime
• Layered safety redundancy (steering, braking, power, emergency stop) built for driverless operation
• CE certified and already integrated into large operators' daily terminal workflows

Cons

• 150 km range and enclosed-yard design limit it to port, park, and industrial settings — not a public-road truck
• Requires dedicated battery-swap infrastructure to hit its fastest turnaround times
• Westwell doesn't publish full technical specs sheets publicly; figures come largely from case studies and press coverage

The Q-Truck isn't chasing the general trucking market — it's built to own a specific job: moving heavy containers around enclosed yards, continuously, without a driver. On that narrow but demanding brief, it's one of the few autonomous heavy vehicles with years of real commercial mileage behind it rather than just demo footage. 

    The country has 53 centers where people wearing touch-sensitive gloves perform routine tasks, and robots mimic their movements. Another 34 such centers are under construction or planned.

   Large companies are also collecting data. For example, the JD marketplace wants to involve up to 600,000 people in the project and collect 10 million hours of movement within two years. 

This data is needed to teach robots how to interact with the physical world, for example, pouring coffee, stocking goods, or performing manufacturing tasks.

The government actively supports these industries. About 80% of medical centers receive state support.

According to The Economist, by early 2026, up to 70% of humanoids produced in China were used specifically for training.

A mass commercial market for such robots will likely emerge well after the transition ends.

In this video from the Prop Department channel, the creator repairs and tests his custom Tesla-powered mini jet boat at about 50% power after previously blowing up the motor/inverter. He installs a new inverter, uses temporary car batteries for 12V systems, and takes the boat for a night run through downtown Nashville. The video covers the root cause of the earlier failure (spinning the motor while powered off, generating damaging voltage), ongoing issues like cavitation, and plans for future full-power testing and tuning. Fun, hands-on EV project content with solid progress shown.

Unitree Robot Overtakes Usain Bolt, and It's About to Get Even Faster

   The Chinese company Unitree Robotics unveiled a new humanoid robot, Superman, capable of reaching speeds of up to 12.66 meters per second. This exceeds the top speed recorded by Usain Bolt during his world-record 100-meter dash in 2009, when he ran at 12.4 meters per second.

   During testing, the robot also performed a 2-meter standing jump.

   According to Unitree, a speed of 12.66 meters per second makes Superman the company's fastest humanoid robot. By comparison, the previous H1 model reached speeds of up to 10 meters per second.

   In 2025, China held its first marathon in which robots were allowed to participate alongside humans. Back then, it was a pitiful sight: most of the robots were controlled by humans, each with a support team of a dozen people, but still, far from all of them made it to the finish line.

   Only a year passed. In the spring of 2026, robots took part in the marathon again. Over the course of a year, Chinese companies developed numerous new models—not for commercial sale, but to perfect the technology.

   A truly qualitative leap occurred. If in 2025, a robot's best result was worse than a human's worst, then by 2026, a robot's best result was an absolute world record. The number of robots that ran completely autonomously and managed to finish also increased by orders of magnitude.

The AT-150 was jointly developed by SPIC, mining truck manufacturer Inner Mongolia North Hauler (NHL), and OEM-agnostic autonomous haulage specialist EACON. It combines three technologies that rarely appear together on the same vehicle: pure electric drive, bidirectional driving, and full autonomy — with EACON describing it as a genuine "mining transport robot" rather than a converted truck.

No cab, no front, no back

Removing the driver's cab entirely let engineers eliminate the traditional distinction between the front and rear of the vehicle. Paired with all-wheel steering and China's first two-way autonomous driving decision system, the AT-150 can drive in either direction through narrow work surfaces without needing to execute a U-turn — a routine bottleneck for conventional haul trucks working tight benches in an open pit.

Semi-solid-state batteries built for -30°C to 50°C

To handle the extreme swings of a northern Chinese mining climate, the AT-150 is the first truck of its tonnage class in China to use semi-solid-state power batteries. The pack supports 3.4 MW, 900V ultra-fast charging and is rated to operate reliably across a range of -30°C to 50°C. A full charge takes no more than six hours, and the truck's modular charging-and-swapping setup is designed to keep equipment deployment above 85%.

65% less energy per tonne than diesel

On-site measurements at SPIC's South pit found the AT-150 consumes 65% less energy per unit of work than a diesel truck of equivalent tonnage — while cutting CO₂ and NOx emissions that come with conventional haulage. The truck runs a closed-loop unmanned cycle covering automatic loading, autonomous driving, precise unloading, obstacle avoidance, and automatic parking, removing drivers from one of mining's harshest working environments while standardizing operation to reduce human error.

EACON frames the AT-150 as a new benchmark for "high-end, intelligent, and green" heavy transport in large open-pit mines — and with China's autonomous mining sector moving fast in 2026, it's likely to be the first of several cabless designs to reach production.

According to U.S. Customs Bills of Lading data compiled by trade research firm ImportGenius and reported by Forbes, Zeekr has shipped more than 3,200 units of its CM1e — known in China as the CM1e, and to Waymo riders as the Ojai — into the U.S. since 2024, with over 2,600 arriving in 2026 alone. Zeekr has no other U.S. customer, so the vehicles are widely assumed to all be headed to Waymo's fleet.

Getting around a 127.5% tariff wall

Chinese-built EVs currently face a combined 127.5% tariff in the U.S. — a 100% duty on Chinese EVs, a standard 2.5% import duty, and an additional 25% fee on "strategic" products including autos and auto parts. At the CM1e's roughly $39,000 Chinese sticker price, tariffs alone could push the landed cost close to $89,000 before any self-driving hardware is added. Most analysts had assumed the expense would cap Waymo's Zeekr fleet at under 1,000 vehicles.

Stripped down, then rebuilt in Arizona

To satisfy U.S. security rules targeting Chinese connected-vehicle technology, the Zeekrs arrive as bare "gliders" — stripped of sensors, telematics, and computing systems at Zeekr's Ningbo factory. Waymo then installs all of its proprietary autonomous driving hardware and software at its manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona. A Waymo spokesperson confirmed the setup, noting the self-driving technology itself is developed in the U.S.

Already on the road in three cities

Waymo has confirmed over 300 Ojai vans in service across early-access areas in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, up from the "more than 100" figure it gave when the model launched in late May. The Ojai rides on Waymo's sixth-generation hardware, which the company says costs roughly half as much as its previous system, and offers sliding doors and a flat floor for easier entry than the Jaguar I-Pace vehicles it's gradually supplementing.

The gap between what regular American buyers can access and what a well-funded robotaxi operator can import highlights an odd side effect of Chinese EV tariffs: the policy meant to protect U.S. automakers from cheap Chinese competition hasn't stopped that competition from reaching American streets — just American driveways.