
Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back - andrethegiant
https://www.ridecabin.com/product
======
jmpman
The concept has just one niche I can see (besides people who are scared of
flying)... getting into downtown SF before 8am without the chance of your
flight being delayed due to fog. If you absolutely need to be at a meeting at
8am, currently you’re flying in the night before, grabbing an Uber from SFO to
a hotel generally close to your morning meeting, hoping you’ll get a good
night sleep and then dealing with the morning commute. You’re paying at least
$300 in addition to the flight.

Of course the above scenario is just the tip of why I’m so excited about self
driving RVs. Hop in at 8pm in your home town, work, watch TV until you’re
ready to go to bed, wake up at your normal 6am, shower, get dressed, and step
outside in front of the office at 7:45am. The RV departs, maybe driving itself
“home”, while you work. At the end of the day, catch an Uber to the airport
for a quick flight home... to be met at the airport by your RV, which whisks
you home. You’re gone for under 24 hours from home, and were able to put in an
8+ hour day. Or, you take the RV all the way home, arriving at home by 8am.
I’d buy one in a heartbeat if the price was around $0.20/mile. I might even
consider using such an RV during a week long trip to the bay - using the RV as
my hotel... having it drive out to Tracy each evening and parking in a Wal-
Mart parking lot. Which in a strange way will alleviate Bay Area housing
shortage - when you’re living in an RV, do you care how far away it’s parked
from work if it’s self driving?

~~~
gambiting
>>having it drive out to Tracy each evening and parking in a Wal-Mart parking
lot.

Do American supermarkets not have any time limits on parking? In the UK every
single supermarket will have a 2-3 hour time limit on parking with anywhere
between £70-100 fine for parking there for longer.

~~~
a3n
So truck drivers don't overnight at UK supermarkets? What do they do when they
can't park at a truck stop and they're out of legal driving hours for the day?

I'm driving a semi truck. I'm parked in a Kroger parking lot in Fort Worth TX
(in an out of the way corner), having slept here overnight. Kroger is unusual,
I mostly use Walmart when I can't find "legitimate" parking, because the lots
are generally bigger, near interstates, and easier to navigate a truck and 53
foot trailer through.

I tried a nearby truck stop first, but there were no spaces.

Two nights before I slept on an interstate on ramp on Alabama. There were ten
to fifteen other trucks on that same ramp, and when I left the next morning
most of the subsequent ramps were full of trucks.

Which is to say, I'm a frequent Walmart parker, by necessity.

I've never seen a specific time limit at a Walmart lot. Sometimes I see no
truck parking signs at Walmart, or no overnight signs (and sometimes i park
there anyway, especially if there are other trucks there).

I have seen time limit signs at some rest areas, for six or eight hours. Yet
truckers are required to stop for at least ten hours between working days. I
ignore those signs.

And by the way, depending on the part of the country, those rest area off and
on ramps are usually also packed with trucks.

I've only been told to move once, waking me from sleep, when I accidentally
parked in a paid reserved space at a truck stop. (Yep, they have those, more
and more.)

~~~
gambiting
>> So truck drivers don't overnight at UK supermarkets? What do they do when
they can't park at a truck stop and they're out of legal driving hours for the
day?

Don't know, but certainly not that. Even the huge supermarkets with their
spacious(for the UK) car parks are way too narrow for a large truck - the
delivery entrance is usually elsewhere, you couldn't even make a turn with one
in here - as an example, that's probably the largest supermarket with the
largest amount of parking anywhere in my area - look at how small these
intersections are, no way you would fit a truck here.

[https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0137268,-1.6641004,3a,75y,333...](https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0137268,-1.6641004,3a,75y,333.5h,84.4t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sDkB4pf3qqasxAl_G5HKPzQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DDkB4pf3qqasxAl_G5HKPzQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D238.5766%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656)

------
mherdeg
I'm a little confused.

* They operate a single service once a week on a round trip from SF to LA that departs SF 11pm Friday and departs LA 11pm Sunday? And they have no published timetable beyond Dec 2020?

* The bus has twenty total berths and each one costs about $100? Five of the berths feature the "Cloud Bump Cancellation System" thing that's being talked up on the ridecabin.com/product page?

* So do they have one total bus?

* They are selling about $4k per week of bus tickets? Does that cover the operating expenses of their very nice looking booking system and the regulatory obligations associated with being a bus company?

* What happens if something happens to that one bus -- does everyone get some other kind of bus ticket or what? The terms of transport seems to say ( [https://www.ridecabin.com/termsoftransportationservices](https://www.ridecabin.com/termsoftransportationservices) ) that they'll try to buy you a bus ticket if their bus isn't working. So ... if the bus is broken down you probably don't know until 11pm and then, how long does it take to get an alternate bus ticket? Where do those backup buses leave from and what timetables do they typically use and how do you get there?

~~~
mherdeg
Does the same driver do the Friday trip south and the Sunday trip north? Do
they get paid for their time on Saturday too? Does Cabin buy them a hotel for
Sat/Sun? (Ha, do they park the bus somewhere and sleep on it?) Is it the same
person every week or do they have a bunch of drivers? Is this a full time job
for the driver or, what else do they do during the week / how do they get
health insurance and pay rent?

------
projektfu
I’d be satisfied with executive-class buses like they have in Mexico.
Comfortable seats and useful timetables.

I’m a veteran of overnight train service between Chicago and Pittsburgh. One
thing I noticed is that cheap flights are still a huge waste of time. If you
fly out Friday night, you spend all evening in airports, risk getting bumped
off an overbooked flight, and arrive tired at a hotel you have to pay for as
well. On the way back you need an early enough flight that you aren’t dead at
work on Monday.

On the overnight train you hang with friends near the station, hop on the
train and go to sleep, waking up fresh on Saturday morning. You have the whole
weekend to do whatever and you hop on the train at the end of Sunday. Monday
morning you arrive fresh, probably 20 minutes early for work.

~~~
mmjaa
I've taken similar train rides as you describe, albeit all over Europe.

Trains are a delightful way to travel - and as well, get some good work done.
Some of my happiest code was written while castles and rivers and villages
scrolled by on the window ..

In my opinion the 'long slow travel .. while sleeping/working' method of
getting around is far more preferable to the 'jet age tin-can' mode, no matter
how far and fast. I'd happily take a train anywhere in the world, were such a
thing feasible ..

~~~
nlh
I agree with your sentiment entirely! One thing to point out - the ‘long slow
travel while working’ mode is still possible even with tin cans. To wit:

I just had one of my most focused, productive (and enjoyable!) coding sessions
of my life on a Zurich -> SFO flight. It was a day flight, 12 hours long. I
was lucky enough to have a bulkhead seat in economy and conditions were
perfect - it was dark (enough), I had absolute focus, unlimited coffee that
got refilled automatically ;) snacks, meals, zero phone calls/distractions,
and good-enough WiFi. I’ve never felt 12 hours vanish so quickly (and code
appear so fluidly ;)

~~~
mmjaa
Nice! Yeah .. I've found as I've aged, I really need scenery somewhere,
scrolling by in the background, if I try to travel-work. I guess I get
claustrophobic without it ..

------
awiesenhofer
Meanwhile, in austria: [https://www.priestmangoode.com/project/new-intercity-
and-nig...](https://www.priestmangoode.com/project/new-intercity-and-
nightjet/)

~~~
mmjaa
Love these trains ..

------
CaliforniaKarl
The Amtrak Coast Starlight departs LA Union Station around 10AM, getting in to
San Jose around 8PM.

I wish there was a train service that departed Los Angeles around 9PM, got in
to San Jose at 7AM, and then expressed to San Francisco for arrival by 8.

~~~
DeepYogurt
The bus is only about $20 cheaper though. For $20 I'll take the train.

------
bdauvergne
There is only 600 km between the two cities (I'm french distance between SF
and LA was unknown to me before :) ), a normal train (200 km/h, with TGV it
would be 2h and some) would take a bit much than 3 hours; with google map I
only see fields, desert and mountains for nearly 550 km, why sleep in a bus ?

~~~
garmaine
Because there is literally no train service between SF and LA—you have to go
out of your way to transfer. The train stations are far outside of the city
where you want to be. And our trains are SLOW. Less than 100km/h. It takes 8+
hours on a train.

~~~
bdauvergne
There is a lot of way to accelerate an existing line: pendulation, remove
curves, add more railways along the existing line, remove stops, on a straight
railway any train can go at more than 200km/h. As for the transfer,
underground/raised metro lines from the centre to the railway station in the
suburbs ? Most of the new TGV station are now done outside city centre in
France (for the same reason than here, surface is expensive near city centre).

~~~
garmaine
Infrastructure projects in America are fucked for a variety of reasons that
other posters in this thread discuss. Basically each of those options end up
being super expensive, subject to unending legal challenges, and exist in a
regulatory environment that does NOT support changing the status quo.

------
jackvalentine
I love the idea and if it were available on the 7 hour drive I do on the
regular I'd use it but some of this marketing copy is extraordinary!

> Whenever the vehicle experiences an event that will create vertical
> acceleration for our resting guests (the feeling of “bumpiness”)

aka whenever the vehicle goes over a bump?

~~~
objektif
Silicon Valleying to the max. Another event that may create vertical
acceleration is being sucked into the sky by aliens. The question is what
happens to the unresting guest when such event takes place?

~~~
jackvalentine
Somewhere buried in their T&C is surely a disclaimer that their patented
reduction of vertical acceleration technology is limited two mitigating the
accelerative force that would move the captive primate (you) two inches.

------
colordrops
I tried a sleeper bus in China and to be frank I was scared to death the whole
ride. Now traffic in the US is safer but by no means perfect. It just takes
one idiot to take out a bus full of sleeping passengers. I don't think I could
sleep.

~~~
fiter
Whether you're sleeping or awake, can you do anything about an accident while
you're riding in the bus?

~~~
jws
Sleep with your feet forward so you don’t break your neck in a crash. (Advice
given to Sara Hickman she she started touring as a musician).

------
ilaksh
Can they order a whole bunch more and find a place to park them in SF near a
gym? Then they can charge $1000 per month per spot.

------
calbear81
Their 1st gen service offered quite a bit of luggage and equipment transport
for free (bike or surfboard) so it was super interesting to me. You could get
on Friday night and go to sleep wake up refreshed in Santa Monica, surf, get a
hotel or what not. Party until Sunday night and then sleep and be in the
office by 8am. No Uber rides needed necessarily and less wasted time getting
to the airport on time etc.

------
modi15
Sleeper buses are huge in India. The railways are choked because they are run
by the government. For overnight travels outside your city, sleeper buses are
the most convenient options for the vast majority of the people - cheaper than
flight, and more accesible/cleaner than the train.

There are multiple private operators which provide this service. Personally, I
dont have too hard a time sleeping in one. It also offers more privacy than a
typical sitting bus or if you are a couple you can book two beds.

There have been a couple of accidents though and people have died. Not too
sure if the accident rate is more than normal sitting buses - sleeper buses
arent perceived more 'risky' in India as compared to the siting ones.

------
lvs
It's not a bus. It's a second-generation groundcraft.

------
jonknee
> During our one-year pilot, road turbulence was a frequent guest complaint.
> Cabin G2 introduces our proprietary bump-canceling technology, Cabin Cloud.
> Beneath select cabins, a suite of sensors, electric motors and control
> algorithms instantly respond to road imperfections by moving a guest’s bed
> up or down to control the vibration. The technology transforms a bump that
> would take a passenger out of the deepest sleep, into a bump that they
> hardly notice.

This reads like parody (road turbulence?!). I haven't done it in a while, but
isn't I-5 between LA and SF is a pretty normal interstate in terms of ride
quality? They make it sound like an off road experience. I could see
emphasizing a quiet ride, but just about any vehicle should be a smooth one.

~~~
dmode
Yeah, I-5 is smooth as hell and getting smoother by the day. But I believe
buses feel bumps in the pavement to bridge transitions

~~~
seandougall
A bus would likely have to stay in the right lane, which is still pretty torn
up by truck traffic in big stretches.

~~~
cardiffspaceman
I've seen buses in the high speed lane and if they keep up with the flow of
traffic I don't mind.

~~~
a3n
I've seen signs that say no trucks in the left lane, buses ok. Buses can
usually accelerate better than trucks. And trucking companies often govern
their trucks. My company governs us to 65mph.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
"1.6x smoother than a maglev bullet train"? There aren't even any "maglev
bullet" trains in service. (Unless they're referring to the Shanghai
Transrapid, which is bumpy as hell but takes only about 10 minutes.)

~~~
1v1id
What do you mean? The Japanese bullet train is maglev, and frankly I was under
the assumption that almost all "bullet" trains need to use maglev to get those
kinds of speeds.

[https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/maglev-bullet-
train](https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/maglev-bullet-train)

~~~
thirtyseven
From your own link:

"In 2009, the Maglev system was approved and entered commercial construction.
The linear Chuo Shinkansen line is planned to link Tokyo and Nagoya by the
year 2027."

~~~
1v1id
Oh, gotcha. Thanks!

------
blisterpeanuts
Before the era of ride sharing, many people dismissed inter-city transports
like this one as impractical. But now, with Uber/Lyft, it's not at all
unreasonable to take a luxurious sleeper between SF and LA and get where you
need to be quite easily. Not having to deal with a TSA strip searches, no
multi-tools, 23" or smaller carryons, and now "pay extra to carry on, pay
extra to reserve a seat". Buses and trains are sounding better and better, and
this tech savvy system sounds really good, especially once they can bring the
price down to a competitive level.

------
thunderbong
I think this mouse scroll capturing behavior beats Powerpoint

------
ulfw
I love how pointless some of their Apple-style Marketing blurb is.

“1.6x smoother than a Maglev train” (which I highly doubt because they don’t
have connection to the ground and ‘fly’ above the guard rail but whatever)

How many Californians have ever been on a Maglev (such as the Shanghai
Transrapid). How does anyone know what 1.6x smoother means compared to
something uncomparable

------
tathougies
Wow, it's almost like there's demand for a high-speed, non-driving land route
between LA and SF. If only we had a fixed route land vehicle that could
provide a smooth, direct route that had enough space for people to do things
like sleep, rest, and use the bathroom.

Maybe I'll call this idea 'a high-speed train' and propose that California
build one between LA and SF... oh wait.

~~~
tryitnow
I'm all for high speed rail, but why is it so expensive and why does it take
so long to build?

China has been able to build out a high speed network fairly quickly. Why is
it that? Is it just because they're cutting corners?

~~~
selectodude
Because China can tell you “hey you don’t live here anymore” and plow right
through neighborhoods and farms. Our property rights in the US are pretty
absolute.

~~~
TehCorwiz
Two words “eminent domain”. The government, both federal and state (depending
on the state) can absolutely obtain your land with zero recourse. They’ll pay
you for it, but you don’t get a choice.

~~~
xoa
> _with zero recourse_

What? There is absolutely recourse, such as "sue them and at a minimum tie the
project up in lawsuits for years". Or "be furious and rally with lots of other
furious land owners/interested citizens and vote the bums out" because focused
single interests, even as minorities, often can exert a great deal of
political influence in a democracy. Or even illegally resisting through
various means, which might not affect this area of California specifically but
is a real threat in some parts of the US.

Eminent domain has an important place and has be used well, as well as abused.
But whether justified or not its use, particularly in modern, is frequently
fraught with controversy and political/legal battles.

~~~
kenhwang
It's just political suicide to use eminent domain these days, but if the
political climate changes, maybe it'll be used again.

The power as written is pretty powerful and has only gotten more powerful and
broad every time it's challenged in court. Since it's hard to argue that
building a high speed rail isn't "public use", the only thing you'd be suing
over would be the "just compensation" part.

I believe in that case, the government can take and use first, and you can
lawsuit afterwards over how much money you think it's worth which really
doesn't stall anything.

If the government can use eminent domain successfully take over land to give
to private developers to build a mall, or even take it just to increase city
revenues, it sure as hell can use it to build a train.

------
anthony_barker
Japan has had something not quite as nice for 30 years. It runs ever night and
is pretty cheap. Lots of public baths so you can shower when you arrive.

Tokyo - Kyoto/Osaka

------
synaesthesisx
While this is a cool concept (especially the suspended, likely over-engineered
sleeping platforms), I can’t see sense in the business model with this type of
pricing. Cabin charges $120 each way for an 8 hour _bus_ ($240 round trip),
while you can get a round-trip flight for less than half that with any of the
major carriers ($107 for LAX - SFO, $91 for LAX-OAK RT).

As someone that regularly travels between LA and SF, I would rather fly Delta
at half the cost and a fraction of the time. Time is money, and it doesn’t
make sense to charge more for an 8 hour bus than an hour-ish flight,
especially when the majority of travelers would rather get from point A->B as
fast as possible.

~~~
atomwaffel
I’m not sufficiently familiar with the geography of SF or LA – how does the
door-to-door time and cost compare when you account for the fact that most
trips don’t actually start and end at an airport? I’d much rather catch a
sleeper bus/train in the city centre in the evening, sleep for 7–8 hours
(something I’d be doing anyway) and wake up in another city centre the next
morning with a full day ahead of me than deal with the hassle of travelling to
an airport, going through security, killing time at the gate, and travelling
back to the city centre at my destination.

~~~
garmaine
Most trips don’t actually start and end at the bus depot either.

~~~
atomwaffel
Exactly, that’s why I’m wondering about the door-to-door times for a typical
trip, and I don’t know enough about American cities to give a qualified answer
myself.

My expectation would be that they’re more central and less time-consuming than
most airports. Then again, my experience with bus stations so far has also
been that they’re even less inviting places than most airports and not usually
as well connected either.

~~~
ghaff
In the case of LA specifically there are several airports scattered around the
area. Also 3 in the Bay. So flying gives you some choice of start-end
destinations. I assume not all the combos are common routes.

------
gok
It's twice the price of a flight, and with planes you can pick between 3 major
airports in SFBA and 5 in LA, which are probably closer to the locations
you're really going between.

~~~
scarejunba
Not for the times involved, right? If you want to leave late on Friday and
leave late on Sunday to maximize the day time you're spending then it's
comparable.

~~~
Scoundreller
And massively cheap if you factor in the saving from a night of accommodation.

------
PaulHoule
I asked a friend of mine who lives in Ventura how he gets to Stanford and he
told me that he takes the train -- and avoids most of So. Cal and the bay
area.

------
denverkarma
Honest question, are men allowed? I assume so because I didn’t see anywhere
that they aren’t, but I didn’t see a single male in the marketing images, and
it has a feminine-looking brand, so now I’m slightly unsure.

I’m assuming it’s just their target demographic is young single (white?)
professional women, but the homogeneity of the marketing images honestly
tripped me up a bit.

Edit: on further examination I do see an image with a guy in a red track suit
outside of one of their busses, I missed that the first time.

Still, to be honest I think I’d be intimidated to book a trip and be the only
male on the bus. Role reversal, I guess :/

------
KingFelix
Seems expensive, a flight could be cheaper?

------
wdr1
I'm 6'6". Will I fit?

------
martinald
Only seems to be one day a week it runs per direction?

~~~
nrp
They appear to be initially targeting the customer who wants to take a weekend
trip to LA from SF or vice versa. That’s a high volume route, which also makes
it super competitive for air travel. It seems a round trip flight costs on the
order of a one way Cabin bus ride, so I assume they are targeting customers
who have chosen not to fly for personal reasons.

~~~
14
Flights in Canada are very expensive. If they could perfect the experience and
expand the market I could see this working well. They could sell "Travel
Across Canada" all while you sleep. Wake up in a new location each day. All of
Canada in a week. No going to the air port and all that mess just meet back at
the bus at a certain hour.

~~~
Scoundreller
A landcruise. I like it.

A european company did something like this: Busabout. They ran a circuitous
route (or two) around W. Europe. You'd buy a 30d pass and hop on/off wherever
you wanted. You could continue, back-track, whatever you wanted.

Doubt they had sleepers.

Kinda like the Eurail passes I guess.

~~~
pseingatl
The DR did it as well: Terrabus. But no overnight trips.

------
dangerboysteve
I'm thinking a Wework on wheels. We're not a bus company we're a tech company!

~~~
z2
Yeah, this part is what got me:

> "... Over the course of hundreds of trips, our software has mapped an
> optimal way to drive for your comfort. Combining this unique dataset with
> real-time tracking of vehicle stability, speed and location, Cabin Drive
> instructs each driver how to safely drive for optimal ride quality based on
> route and road conditions."

~~~
gizmo385
> optimal way to drive

Isn't it basically just a straight interstate shot for the vast majority of
the trip between SF and LA?

~~~
gorbypark
I think if you were focused on driving smoothly as to not wake sleeping
passengers you could do a lot with software. It would be pretty easy to use an
accelerometer to map road conditions and tell drivers that bumps are coming up
and to slow down, or to switch lanes to avoid this pot hole, even while
driving the same route.

------
test435
Awesome news

------
ganitarashid
The Achilles heel of this entire concept is that a sleep deprived, tired
driver earning minimum wage is driving you through the night. Doesn’t matter
how luxurious the interior is.

------
parsimo2010
The claim that their bus is 1.6x smoother than a train is impossible, and
indicative of marketing taking priority over honest metrics.

How is 1.6x smoother impossible? Imagine a maglev train has bumps with a peak
amplitude of 2 cm. Then 1.6x of that is 3.2 cm. So to be 1.6x smoother they
would need their cabin to reduce bumps to -1.2 cm, which is impossible.

The truth is often the inverse of this, such as, “maglev trains are 1.6x
bumpier than our bus.” That means that your bus is 62.5% as bumpy as a maglev
train, but this doesn’t sound as good to the marketing folks. For any positive
metric it is impossible to be more than 100% less than something. Cabin either
have people with poor numeracy skills, or they willfully used inaccurate
wording to make their bus sound better. It makes me trust the rest of their
marketing spiel 1.6x less.

~~~
chiph
They may have licensed the Bose Ride system, which is sold to commercial truck
drivers to smooth out bumps.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_G9GCpWAcM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_G9GCpWAcM)

Edit: Looks like Bose has sold it to Clearmotion:

[https://www.clearmotion.com/active-suspension-
seat](https://www.clearmotion.com/active-suspension-seat)

~~~
gizmo385
The website refers to the cancellation technology as "their proprietary
technology" so I'm not sure if it's licensed.

