Google was detecting bicyclists making hand signals 4 years ago. I don't think they are as map dependent as you are arguing.

There is also the possibility that having a detailed map accelerates progress (better automatic scoring of sensor based modeling systems).

The waymo cars have more sensor data and do more local computation than anything out there. Instead of saying Waymo relies on map data, I'd say they have a defense-in-depth solution that integrates a multitude of different sensors and databases.

Do you want a system that only works on forward facing vision? Or only lidar? Or only gps and road databases? Or only machine learning? We know all of these have holes and blind spots, and a safe system wood have redundancy.

I think the actual distance between Waymo and those that evolved from lane keeping is far bigger than people realize and the biggest danger is people shipping MVPs that kill someone or run into a school playground, if that happens, congress will ban these cars or regulate so heavily that progress will be slowed.

Surely your employer would state or demonstrate their cars as being capable of a long-distance trip if they were technically capable of doing so.

Bear in mind, with this announcement, they aren't even committing to "it works in the Phoenix metro area". There's that "parts of" statement, that indicates that only parts of the area is mapped and hence the cars are only capable of operating in parts of the Phoenix metro area.

If you have evidence to the contrary, please, by all means, feel free to share.

You're making lots of evidence free statements due to your anti-Google bias that have little basis in reality. You seem to think that Google is using less machine learning than Tesla. Think about what you're saying, Google, the company which uses machine learning for everything, whose long demonstrated the ability to read street signs and crowdsourced massive ML data on it using Recaptcha, and which makes purpose-built self driving vehicles is doing less than Tesla, whose self-driving capability was an after-thought, the vehicle was not designed from the get-go for Level 3 or 4 capability.

How would Waymo possibly build a car with Level 3 or 4 capability if they weren't doing a hellava lot of onboard visual field processing? Accurate maps data won't let you deal with bicyclists or pedestrians properly, it won't deal with all kinds of hazards.

There's a reason Waymo cars are festooned with LIDAR and cameras and other HW in a giant boxy minivan, and it isn't purely for show to make them ugly on purpose.

Trying to accuse me of "anti-Google bias" is amusing when you are literally paid by Google, and have an inherent conflict of interest/bias of the highest order. Pot, meet kettle. Although, really, I'm not either because I've never been paid by any company with stakes in this discussion. I know you can do better than ad hominem.

I am saying there is no evidence, or even a claim by Google, that their cars are capable of functioning outside a pre-mapped area. You have presented zero evidence of it whatsoever, and are trying to use Google's marketingspeak about how fancy their machine learning things are to insinuate I should assume Google's technology is more advanced than they can demonstrate.

You are highlighting particular capabilities of their collision avoidance on that mapped area to suggest they don't need a mapped area, which is also a non-supported claim. It is entirely plausible, and in fact, likely, that Google's visual mapping for collision avoidance is sophisticated, and yet still fully dependent on a map as a baseline.

Google's marketing claims continue to be extraordinary, and often untrustworthy, and you're going to have to do better than that.

Find me any, literally any, evidence that a Google self-driving car can operate outside the very tiny fenced in areas Google says they can operate. As far as I can tell, there is none, because you are making a claim that even Google itself is not making about it's cars.

Google's marketing claims are extraordinary by running careful, incremental, roll out trials? What company is shipping 'Autopilot' software to drivers today that has actually killed someone, doesn't function in less than perfect highway conditions, whose own fine print says basically not to use it as its name implies, and has numerous calls for it to be disabled?

What does it mean "cars are capable of functioning <in an area>"? What does "Functioning" mean? Tesla Autopilot don't function off highways, and barely function on highways. So you think someone should get credit for functioning at scale everywhere, if they ship a consumer product with no restrictions, but it fails badly when people actually try it? You're comparing a broken product to one that purportedly works, but you think it's smoke and mirrors?

I love Tesla cars and I plan to buy a P90D, but in my opinion, their whole self driving program is incredibly reckless. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQxIhMBKblY) Waymo's approach is careful, over engineered, defense-in-depth. Slow by Silicon Valley standards, but you're dealing with public safety. Yes, they use maps as one of their sources of truth, they'd be reckless not to, but they also use LIDAR and vision systems with machine learning, because of course, no map can be real time.

Tesla is trying to sell an upgraded lane-keeping system as a self driving system. Maybe you should be more concerned about that.

I can only say what is public already, but you can look at the disengagements data to see Waymo cars are three orders of magnitude better than their competitors.

I don't disagree Tesla's marketing is dishonest as well. But if Google's system only works on predefined destinations, essentially within a controlled environment, it isn't even really in the game.

If the lane lines are hard to read in a part of Phoenix, Google can ask for them to be repainted before approving the cars for that area but everyone else just has to assume bad lane lines are something they'll contend with.

Is there an NDA these early riders will have to sign?

Do they have to provide a list of destinations ahead of time?

I feel this announcement makes it seem like these cars are ready for public use. But I don't see the evidence to suggest they really are. And as you indicate, Googlers aren't talking.