The Autopian‘s writers are known for doing some profoundly dumb things, but I think I might have just taken the crown of stupid decisions. On the last night of my 4,050-mile journey in the Autopian‘s Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet, I decided to sleep in the car. I could have purchased a blanket, but then I saw it, a car cover. I slept for seven hours under a car cover. It might have been the worst sleep of my life, but it got worse, as I was informed that the car cover was doused in cat pee and gasoline at some point. Yet, I think I just discovered something awesome. Car covers, at least when they aren’t covered in cat pee, are secretly great blankets!
Now, some of you might be questioning my motives here. Clearly, I had to do this for the clicks, right? Surely, nobody would voluntarily subject themselves to such abuse. Well, while I am technically paid to do stupid things with cars, I am not paid to hurt myself. Weirdly, or perhaps stupidly, sleeping in cars is a sort of road trip tradition of mine. So, I do this to myself for free.
It started back in 2016 when I bought my brand-new 2016 Smart Fortwo in Los Angeles, then proceeded to cannonball my way home back to Waukegan, Illinois. There was a point in my journey where I became so tired that it was dangerous to keep driving. There was only one issue, as I was in an area rural enough that my only real choice for lodging was a run-down $35 motel. I didn’t even know such cheap motels existed! The motel looked properly sketchy, and I decided that a brand-new car was probably better lodging. After all, I had seen plenty of hotshot drivers sleeping in trucks and other travelers napping in their cars at rest stops. So, I reclined my seat back and started sawing some logs.
That sleep was surprisingly restorative, even though I wasn’t in a bed. Since then, I’ve sort of become obsessed with the idea of sleeping in a car. If I am on a long enough trip that there’s at least one overnight halt, I will sleep in whatever car I’m driving at least once, just to see what it’s like. I can’t be the only one who runs into the issue of either sold out or bad lodging on the road. Besides, if your vehicle is comfortable enough, who cares about paying extra for a hotel room?
I have developed a sort of internal ranking system of the best cars and the worst cars that I have slept in. My ranking system is based on how good the rest is, and what modifications need to be done to achieve said good rest. I intentionally exclude vehicles with built-in beds like RVs and conversion vans.
Based on this, my favorite vehicle to sleep in thus far is the 2025 Ford F-350 Super Duty Platinum Plus. The rear bench was so big and so soft that all I needed was a $7 truck stop blanket to have a really good sleep.
In second place is the Chevrolet HHR. The beauty of the HHR is that it has a flat roof, and seats that fold perfectly level with the cargo floor. As a result, all I need is a blanket and a yoga mat to have a great sleep in it.
Third place would be a cargo van. An air bed and a blanket goes so far here. The only reason I don’t rate it higher than the HHR is because the HHR is more of a normal passenger car. I have slept in all sorts of cars, from Ski-Klasse and more than one Smart Fortwo to a Volkswagen Touareg VR6 and a Ford Festiva without doors or windows.
Anyway, the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet rates dead last on my list, and you’ll understand why in a moment.
Running Out Of Energy
My journey home from the Lone Star/No Start Lemons Rally in Texas began at around 10 pm on Sunday night. That’s when I dropped off our excellent photojournalist, Griffin, at a location in Houston. According to the GPS, I had a 1,100-mile, 17-hour drive ahead of me. This was a problem. There was no way I could do this drive straight through after having been awake for all of Sunday already. I also had to manage my time just right so I would arrive home at a reasonable time on Monday. So, I decided to drive for a few hours or so before sleeping.
I made it about 200 or so miles north of Houston before my energy ran out. Unfortunately, I found no hotels I was willing to roll the dice on, but there was the occasional truck stop. Well, now was the time to continue my old tradition!
I examined the CrossCab’s interior, and things looked bleak. The front seats didn’t recline enough to sleep in, and I didn’t think they were comfortable enough, either. The photos I’m providing here are what the interior looked that night, junk littering the floor and all.
The rear bench looked promising. I am not very tall, so a small backseat isn’t a big deal to me. I became determined to sleep there. In the worst case, I thought, I’d just curl my legs. Thankfully, I had a whole week’s worth of luggage with me, so I had more than enough material to fashion a pillow.
The problem was the cupholder. The CrossCab has a hard plastic cupholder in the center of the backseat, and I imagine it’s there, at least in part, to prevent three people from trying to fit back there.
I felt around with my fingers, and it seemed like the cupholder was hard-mounted to the backseat’s frame in some way. I bet there was a way to release it, but it was two in the morning, and I didn’t have enough energy to take apart the backseat to find out.
The other problem was that I didn’t have a blanket. This had an easy solution, as truck stops often have decent blankets for less than $20.
Here’s the truck stop blanket I bought when I slept in the back of the F-350 press loaner.
What Was I Thinking?
But I’m a cheapskate who tries to get by with whatever I have. So, I popped the trunk and went digging. I did not find a blanket, but I did find a massive car cover. That caused a dim lightbulb to glow above my head. Not only could I use this car cover as a blanket, but there was so much of it that I could also use it as a bed base. Brilliant! I thought.
Granted, seeing a full gas can next to my “blanket” should have been a red flag:
So, I piled the car cover into the backseat. Sure enough, it did make for a decent enough bed base to hide the hard plastics of the backseat. But there was also so much of it that I was able to wrap myself up like a big burrito and achieve surprisingly nice sleep.
I had to sleep at an angle to avoid getting cupholder-d to death, but I did fall into a deep sleep. Amusingly, I did think the car cover smelled a little weird, but I thought that had to have been coolant or some other engine fluid. Either way, the smell wasn’t pungent enough to stop me.
What amazed me the most was that a car cover worked as a frankly awesome blanket. The thermometer claimed it was only 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside when I went to sleep. I did not run the engine, and, in fact, I kept a window cracked for ventilation. It was freezing in the CrossCab. Yet, so long as I kept myself wrapped in the car cover, I felt darned toasty.
The car cover also felt pretty nice on the inside. Remember, a good car cover at least tries to prevent itself from scratching your paint, so the insides often have a felt or suede-like material. It was great!
I got about seven hours of sleep while wrapped in my car cover burrito. Honestly, I was surprised when I woke up and felt pretty restored.
Now, I felt restored, but the rest of me hated that night of sleep. My shoulders felt sore, both of my arms felt like they had been pummeled, and my back was ready to leave the chat. I had energy, sure, but my body felt like it had gotten hit by a bus. I’m not sure I have even woken up from a car sleep in so much pain, and I’m positive I shortened my lifespan by a few years. That wasn’t the car cover’s fault. It was my fault for trying to turn the CrossCab into a no-budget hotel room.
But I kept returning to the car cover. I watched a sunrise from the backseat of the CrossCab with the car cover keeping me warm. I could see my breath in the air, but I felt nice and hot!
Wait, It Was Covered In What?
I was so impressed with the performance of the car cover that I excitedly told the Autopian’s Slack channel and our Discord server. Matt, probably in shock, asked me why I didn’t get a hotel room, and then told me that the car cover had been absolutely drenched in pee from Los Angeles cats. Oh, that “coolant” smell wasn’t coolant, after all. Matt also told me that the gas can in the back of the CrossCab also spilled onto the car cover at least once. Oh my.
[Ed note: If you haven’t become a member yet, please do. If we get 100 more members, maybe I can convince these ridiculous people to stay in a damn hotel and not sleep under pee pee blankets – Matt]
Also, if you’re curious about where my wife falls into all of this, well, she knows that I have a propensity for sleeping in cars. She wasn’t mad at me for sleeping in the car. She just wants the best for me at all times, and she does not see a car as being suitable lodging, which is fair:
Alright, so I slept in a chimichanga of Mercedes, cat pee, gasoline, and a car cover. I don’t regret it! Okay, I regret the cat pee part, but not the car cover part.
I am being absolutely serious when I say that the car cover was legitimately awesome as a blanket. It was warm, it felt nice and weighted, and it was even reflective for, you know, bedtime safety! Dare I say, people might be sleeping on the latest innovation in sleeping technology. The giant cover that keeps your car safe can also be a blanket in a pinch. Honestly, now I sort of want to see a real comforter blanket set that’s styled to look like a car cover, complete with the reflective strips and all.
Of course, I am only half joking, I think. Car covers are decidedly not blankets. Also, there are lots of different car covers out there, and I’m sure many of them are not breathable. So, I reckon there’s possibly some real danger there, especially for little ones. So, don’t be like me.
But if you’re as dumb as I was and think “blanket” the next time you see a car cover, just make sure that you sleep in something not as miserable on your body as a CrossCab. A car cover blanket in a cargo van? Oh yeah, that would be decent.
Maybe I just discovered the new “killer app” in sleeping technology. Why sleep under a truck stop blanket when you can rock a car cover? As it turns out, the same tool that keeps your car snug in the winter can also keep you snug! Or, maybe I’m crazy from inhaling whatever was on that car cover for seven hours. Yeah, maybe it’s that.
Top credits: Mercedes Streeter, DepositPhotos.com
car tripped in a 70 datsun pickup as a youth. slept quite comfy under the bed in my sleeping bag… til a trooper woke me up. turns out there was a nice beach on the other side of the guard rails.
Hey Mercedes the time will come when you wake up feeling like this on a mattress and where any time you get 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep it is better than finding your favorite episode of Top Gear on TV.
I love the tender but I’m-onto-your-bullshit-ness of the texts. She’s got you figured out. Adorable.
How to spot a real long term relationship, they front-load their expectations of their request vs. the likely reality.
She told me that she went through her head for all of the things she knows I struggle with. She knows I try to cannonball my drives, that I sometimes skip meals, and that I sometimes stay up late trying to reach a destination.
However, she realized her request to get sleep could be interpreted as “sleep anywhere,” so she raced to put in that last request.
I do not check texts while driving (plus I think my music drowned out the notification) so I didn’t catch it until I already made my bed, so to speak.
“How was your night sleeping in the car?”
“Well, I’m feeling a little pissy and gassy, but not bad.”
I find the fact that you ranked the
CrossCab lower than a doorless Festiva on your “best cars to sleep in” list very hilarious. if only that poor CrossCab could read…
I guess it would be left feeling incredibly…
cross.
Another reason to keep my Matrix: A twin-sized blow-up mattress fits in it. Slept in it for the Solar Eclipse in 2017.
You know if you are going to spend time in a car with something inflatable there are better choices. Lol
Well, at least Mercedes didn’t lose a pair of glasses while making a decision to sleep in a car based on epic levels of being cheap. And she didn’t get twrenchfoot a year later. 😉
Are we sure you didn’t just get a solid night of sleep solely as the result of the combination of cat pee and gasoline knocking you out?
Does this car cover smell like chloroform to you?
1-i knew that F250 story would re appear. —2- I m beginning to think some women are tougher than me. 3- Where did you use the sandbox at night?
It would be poetic justice if she found a cat to pee on
Or she used the blanket then blamed convenient imaginary Los Angeles stray cats.
Most women are tougher than me.
As a long time cat owner, I can confirm their penchant for peeing on car covers, grill covers, and any other sort of cover they can aim their urine at.I’m guessing that you’d have a better than 50% chance of encountering cat pee on any used car cover of unknown provenance.
And of course, we all know how much they enjoy squirting your tires.
My understanding of cats having had many over the years is this-
“If it can be peed on, it must be peed on”
That damned neighbor cat is always coming around and peeing on my grill cover which then causes my cat to pee on my grill cover in retaliation!
Get a motion sensor sprinkler
When I was a kid there was a stray male cat that would hop up on our kitchen window sill and spray the pass thru window. I thought a good deterrent might be to run a low voltage, say 12-24V between the screen and a metal plate on the shelf under that window. When he sprayed he’d bridge the circuit through his most sensitive area…
Fortunately that cat found somewhere else to mark before I was able to act on my plan.
Go pee on the cat’s grill. Show him who’s boss.
I’m hoping that widespread L2 chargers in decent spots to sleep in a car become a thing. Once I figured out how to configure the Bolt to nicely fit a twin folding mattress, the ability to stop late at night, plug in the car, sleep overnight inside, and wake up in the morning fully charged beats hotels when traveling alone almost all the time.
I’ll stick to sleeping bags though, instead of car covers…
This is really smart — in fact, you might not even need level 2 if you’re there for 12+ hours, so that gives people some options on how to price the service based on need.
I’m already picturing something like a drive-in theatre with all the cars plugged in and showing movies. Basic security, amenities. This could be the next 1950s motel trend, just for EVs.
That sounds fun enough to make me consider an EV.
I was thinking something more basic, like a charger in the back parking lot of a BLM field office, but some extras like watching a movie while eating dinner, sleeping in the car, then getting a burrito in the morning before continuing could be quite nice.
Well Whataburger has a wonderful sausage egg and cheese burrito with a little picante sauce and make it 4 of them you are good to go. They aren’t small I am big
Genius but you know as soon as it starts that will be when the organ harvesting begins
An ex-coworker of mine would sleep in his Niro EV plugged into an L2 charger on the drive from Edmonton to Vancouver.
In the winter.
Can you run the heat while changing? I know I enjoyed my plug in block heater on my work truck as I left at 4am sometimes at below zero. I thought I was pretty hardy until I had a flat and some more tow truck driver came out and took off the flat and put on a tire manually at 4am below zero
I mean, we had the Taycan at Full Interior Blast while charging when I had one to review, so I’m pretty sure a Niro EV can do the same. Just drains some charge while you’re adding more in.
Yes, you can 100% run the AC or heat while charging, but some cars will limit it to 20 or 30 minutes like a remote start. Our 330e has a option on the screen to run the climate control when the car is off. Some cars you just leave the car on. It’s typically a feature that is needed if you are at a charging station for a period of time and don’t want to leave the car.
Nice, I’ve certainly learned to try to point the car SE to get morning sun to melt all the thick ice off the inside of the windshield when sleeping in it in below freezing temps. Rarely have any chargers available though.
Do you have a description/ image of both the configuration, and the folding mattress? Never heard of such a thing.
This is the mattress we have, there are other different options as well (we have 6 inch thick twin xl)- https://www.milliardbrands.com/collections/tri-fold-mattress-mattresses-furniture/products/6-tri-fold-memory-foam-mattress-with-cover
I don’t have any pictures of the mattress in the Bolt, but when we use it traveling alone, we just take all the headrests off front and back except the driver, fold down the back seat, and put the mattress in the back with the most forward segment folded over. When it’s time to sleep, it takes about a minute to remove the driver’s headrest, move the front seats all the way forward and recline all the way, and fold the last mattress segment over the front seats. It’s not perfectly flat, but pretty close and quite nice, certainly by far the best sleeping in a car setup I’ve ever used.
With a narrower mattress, it would probably be possible to just have it on the passenger side, instead of taking up the entire car, but I’m 6′ 5″, so enjoy having the entire interior turn into a bed to sprawl out.
I should try this with the car cover for my race car bed!!
Hi Kirk!
What exactly added cat pee and gasoline? I suggest you don’t
Just DIY with your own pee and some ammonia. No one will know the difference! Or return your calls.
Back when I had two infants at home, a two hour commute, and finite sleep time I would regularly opt to sleep in my Outback for lunch. Crack the windows, recline the front seat, pop on Car Talk, and saw logs in the parking lot for 45 minutes or so. Kept me from nodding off at my desk.
When people asked me why I kept driving a minivan even when our kids were old enough that we didn’t need it…I realized that all these hour-long activities and practices were a perfect time to sleep on the second row. One of the many, many reasons I will always say that split benches beat captain’s chairs in almost every case.(Also, I think one of the only things keeping me from membership is the slow comment interface. For some reason, this is the only site where my typing builds up in a buffer, like a 2-5 second delay. It makes it hard to type and edit, very strange.)
At what point in time do growing kids no longer require a minivan? After they move out?
If you have two or less kids, a minivan is optional. It’s still optimal, but it is optional.
FWIU insurance is cheaper on most of them than a similarly-sized and powered CUV, an important consideration with teen drivers in the house.
That’s peak minivan. Between moving every few months, and touring with your band, minivans are the 20somthing’s essential tool.
There was a guy at my old job that drove a ratty old conversion van with a bed in the back and curtains. Dude took a nap every lunch break in it and I was so jealous. Big HVAC equipment outside made for great white noise.
I would nap partway home after my night shifts sometimes. One “four off” experience was enough for me.
I also started taking power naps when I finished work in that time where I finished work and I was clear to pick up my little one from daycare.
Sometimes in the summer, I’d find a local park and lay on a bench in the sun and drift off with a preset alarm. It was my zen moment between finishing work and beginning the evening routine.
Yeah, that was the downfall of the Outback, and my first Civic. With automatics and comfy seats they were too comfortable for an end of day hour drive on the freeway. The manual in my 13 Sonic kept me engaged and awake. The harsher ride quality probably helped as well.
Alas, Mercedes’ career writing ad copy was brief.
Also: for 100 more members Jason will downgrade to a 18-hr work day, see his family for 2 hrs and sleep up to four hours, with six on weekends. I will upgrade the membership now.
The Nissan Cross Cab feature list includes a hostile architecture interior.
Even its designers didn’t want anyone to spend more time inside than absolutely necessary.
They knew the top would fail, so they didn’t want homeless hopping in to catch some sleep.
Signed,
Dirty Mike and the Boyz
The other guys. Is this considered a classic yet? An ex gf of mine put me onto it a decade or so ago.
You’re gonna get hop-ins.
“If we get 100 more members, maybe I can convince these ridiculous people to stay in a damn hotel and not sleep under pee pee blankets”
Matt, you’ve changed. You used to do membership initiatives to force your staff to sleep in cars for a week, and now you want them in a hotel?
DT desires pedestrian life, so we force him into a car. Mercedes craves the nomadic chaos of sleeping in cars, so we’re confining her to hotels.
it’s all about nightmare factories. Next, we’re making Adrian daily a Yugo. After that, Hundal has to listen exclusively to Hardibro’s TMD playlist for a month.
Matt should be the next one to be forced to sleep in a car. Make him take a Izuzu Trooper to Tonopah Nevada and stay a week.
Cat-Pee Chimichanga is my new Punk band name
Edit: GDit – to the tune of The Smiths “Girlfriend In A Coma”
Cat Pee Chimichanga, I know
I know it’s really odorous
Cat Pee ChimiChangli
Okay, I’ll have to give you co-writer credit.
This needs to be Torch’d up & put on a t-shirt, immediately.
“If we get 100 more members, maybe I can convince these ridiculous people to stay in a damn hotel and not sleep under pee pee blankets”
Not really a selling point. It should be “If you want to see more…”
Wow; I can actually smell this article.
My Dad grew up in rural Montana back when cars were a lot less reliable, and he taught me to always have a good blanket in my car just in case.
Here in New England, the dailes all get a blanket, jumper cables, rug scraps for traction and fluids. I’ve used everything but the blankets but 6 foot me avoids sleeping in cars.
I’m picturing the car cover being like one of those emergency hiking blankets. It was a good idea, Mercedes, except for the smelly part
Same. My cars have a blanket folded to also work as a cargo mat. Then there is the water, snacks, hat, gloves and coat.
Yup. Grew up in new england, so all my vehicles have some kind of blanket in them. My daily also has an old beat-up down parka in the trunk that I’ve had in every daily I’ve owned since 1992. (I don’t think I’ve ever worn it. If you have it, you won’t need it.)
I’ve used tarps in the covered bed of my pickups over the years. Never tried using a car cover. Thanks for the idea!
“Wrapped in my car cover burrito”
and “Alright, so I slept in a chimichanga of Mercedes, cat pee, gasoline, and a car cover. I don’t regret it! Okay, I regret the cat pee part, but not the car cover part” are worth the cost of subscription. Don’t even change!
was it truly that comfortable or did you just succumb to the fumes?
Well, she did wake up. It might have been more of a problem if she hadn’t had the window cracked.
The car cover was comfortable…but nothing else was that night. I’d take another test drive of the car cover blanket on a real bed, but Matt thoroughly scared me off with the cat pee talk.
it’s for the best. lol
You are one local Laundromat away from resolving the pee and gas issue.
Or…
A lit match.
Possibly the greatest headline in automotive journalism!!!! Thanks so much for this!