I disagree.
Phoenix has the perfect climate for self-driving cars.
It will require a major technological leap in order for them to succeed in the "real world" (fog, rain, snow, etc).
Phoenix has the perfect climate for self-driving cars.
It will require a major technological leap in order for them to succeed in the "real world" (fog, rain, snow, etc).
We handle both dense fog and heavy rain on the latest vehicles. The best blog post is probably https://waymo.com/blog/2021/11/a-fog-blog/ but you can find a lot of videos in the rain.
Snow and very cold weather is a challenge for sensor cleaning. We've done some testing in both NYC and Buffalo (https://waymo.com/blog/2023/11/road-trip-how-our-cross-count...) to collect data.
Winter here changes daily between
- no road lines visible
- snow packed into ice randomly making the road a a camouflage pattern
- snow is fresh/deep so no road is visible and you navigate based on the slight hump in the snow where you know there's a curb
- same as above, but instead of a curb a slight indent where there's a ditch
- slush piles outside the tire lanes, which if hit will suck you in or cause you to spin out
- ice/snow on hills, so time your arrival for rolling stops at intersections because stopping is not an option
- active snowfall (limited camera vision, and I'm guessing reduced/useless signal from lidar)
- hail
- sporadic black ice (its easy to slow down when its icy everywhere, but knowing when and where black ice is likely when it's sporadic is a skill)
- the "lanes" formed by peoples tires in the snow often don't align with the official road, and sometimes a lane goes missing in this situation
And all that's after you deal with sensor cleaning.
Snow drifts in the wind, side roads don't get regularly plowed, and conditions change rapidly so unless they can handle the majority of the list above then they won't be able to handle winter period.
I'm not sure why you are trying to justify such a large shortcoming - for most people having your car be randomly unusable for 1/3 of the year would be a big deal.