Just curious, what is your personal experience with Waymo that leads you to this conclusion? Also curious to know about Waymo’s performance in the snow because I haven’t heard much about that.
When you experience it, it's clear they have a mature system that's learned from driving millions of real world miles (and billions in simulation). And if you follow their research/tech stack closely, there's no doubt they are years ahead of everyone else. I'm not sure how successful of a business they will be, but their tech is solid.
As far as driving in inclement weather, Waymo is pretty transparent that it's very much a work in progress. They claim the 5th gen Jaguar I-Pace vehicles (the 4th gen Pacificas in AZ don't do as well) will be able to handle rain/snow/fog better due to upgraded sensors, but it's one of the big challenges remaining for them.
Waymo (and others) are very clear that geofencing and prior knowledge of roads are necessary for safe operations. Their safety standards are extremely high because there’s no driver for fallback — the vehicle is responsible end-to-end. Geofencing allows them to validate extensively and that means when they say it works, it really does.
I think the mapping argument is pretty overblown at this point. Most of them have figured out how to do it efficiently and keep it up-to-date.
[1] https://blog.waymo.com/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-map...
> Also curious to know about Waymo’s performance in the snow because I haven’t heard much about that.
Me too, i know almost nothing about their ability in snow.