Waymo is rolling out a new driverless taxi to help the company expand into more cities and tackle tougher driving conditions, including snowy roads, the company announced Wednesday.

The new vehicle, dubbed the Ojai, will begin serving select customers in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix in the coming weeks. Rides will be free of charge as the company gathers feedback.

The Ojai has sliding doors and offers riders more legroom, three screens and accessibility features such as Braille. The minivan-like taxi can carry four passengers and also has more cargo space than its current vehicles.

Waymo is launching around 100 Ojai vehicles and plans to ramp up production to supplement its fleet of Jaguar I-Pace taxis, which shuttle customers around in more than 10 cities.

The company plans to eventually have tens of thousands of driverless taxis made per year, starting with the Ojai, then scaling using retrofitted Hyundai IONIQ 5s.

The Ojai is manufactured for Waymo by Zeekr, a Chinese automobile company.

Though it appears bulkier than the I-Pace, the Ojai is only 1% larger, the company said.

Waymo’s new autonomous vehicle, called the Ojai. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The Ojai could pave the way for Waymo to expand more rapidly at a lower price, as it costs less to manufacture and outfit than the I-Pace. The company says the new robotaxis have better batteries and are easier to clean and maintain than their predecessors.

The new vehicle also uses self-driving technology more efficiently, the company said, relying on 13 cameras, five lidars and six radar sensors. The I-Pace taxis have 29 cameras.

Waymo’s sixth-generation “Waymo Driver” system will debut in the Ojai, designed to better handle snowy conditions and other driving situations.

Last week, Waymo suspended its service on U.S. freeways due to safety concerns, particularly regarding flooded roads and construction zones. The company recalled more than 3,000 vehicles in April after several vehicles drove into standing water. The sixth-generation driver aims to fix those bugs.

Waymo is a privately held company owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company. It is leading the race to put more driverless taxis on the road, pulling ahead of Amazon’s Zoox, Elon Musk’s Tesla and a handful of efforts from Uber.

Waymo taxis have completed more than 20 million fully autonomous trips in cities including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami and Nashville.

After nearly 50 years of selling all things comics, Dark Horse is closing its Things From Another World retail locations.

The publishing house, well known for series such as “Hellboy” and “The Umbrella Academy,” operated two storefronts in Oregon and maintained a flagship store at L.A.’s Universal Citywalk. The Oregon shops will close in June, and the L.A. location will close in September. The company said in a statement that these closures are a part of its efforts to “modernize.”

“This was not an easy decision, and we do not take lightly the impact it has on the people directly affected,” Dark Horse said in a statement.

As the company moves away from the retail business, the Oregon-based publisher said it plans to focus more on its creators and writers, “ensuring they have the development support, creative partnerships, and resources to bring their visions to life across film and television.” Over the years, Dark Horse has become one of the largest comics publishers in the country.

The company also recently launched a games division focused on providing creators with development opportunities in interactive entertainment.

Dark Horse added, “We believe these changes further focus Dark Horse on its successful core publishing and collectibles business and on deepening our relationship with our fans and the retail community alike.”

The structural changes came a week after Dark Horse Media, which oversees Dark Horse Comics, was rolled into a new parent company, Fellowship Entertainment. The Stockholm-listed entertainment business was formed through a company split at Embracer Group. Under this separation, Fellowship Entertainment is now home to companies such as Dark Horse Media and Crystal Dynamics, as well as IPs such as “The Lord of the Rings” and “Tomb Raider.”

Dark Horse was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson. He had initially opened Pegasus Books in Bend, Ore., in 1980, with plans to become an author. But as the retail business expanded, he instead decided to get into the publishing industry with Dark Horse. In the first few years of the company, he popularized comic series based on movies such as “Star Wars,” “Aliens” and “Predator.” Today, the company represents over 350 properties across comics, books, films, television, electronic games, toys and collectibles.

The closing of Things From Another World at Universal Citywalk marks the loss of another legacy comic store in the city. In recent years, many storied shops such as Geoffrey’s Comics in Torrance, Earth-2 Comics in Sherman Oaks and Hi De-Ho Comics in Santa Monica have all been forced to close due in part to a struggling retail market.