* Actual loss: the amount that the victim company lost in sales, customers, etc. because another company stole its trade secret. Here this is probably zero, since there are no self-driving cars in the market. (Although who knows, maybe Waymo lost partnership opportunities with large automakers to Uber)
* Reasonable royalties: hypothetically, if Uber licensed the allegedly stolen tech from Waymo, how much would they have paid?
* Unjust enrichment: benefit the Bad Guy got from the Bad Act(s), for example the amount of R&D that it didn't have to spend because it just shortcut the process.
Plus, in California, there's punitive damages available for twice the amount of damages. Which, if the facts are anything like what's alleged, Waymo will get.
The numbers add up fast.
In the end, in a lawsuit like this, you must come up with an economic model that quantifies the damage, and must convince the judge (or jury, or whoever awards the damage claims) to accept it. So it's also a question of psychology. If you can show that an action was morally outrageous, you have a better chance to get awarded a higher damage claim.
In general, "actual" damages are not the only thing in the world. If all you ever could get were "actual" damages, it would almost always be more efficient to breach contracts :)
Either way, I don't think Google cares. They want to be first on the market. And based on how badly Uber has been flouting the law, I suspect Google gets there first no matter what. This just slows Uber down.
It won't matter though. Money will change hands. And that's about it. Google/Alphabet/Waymo/Lyft will be first to market in a pretty shitty way, followed by Uber. The tech world and early adopters will go nuts and in this case probably die in a fire. Then Apple and Tesla will come in with a far superior safety/user experience and take over.
None of this really matters at this point. It's a waiting game. This is what Apple always does and what Tesla has started doing: wait for the early entries in the market to do their thing, learn from their mistakes, and pwn the market later with better UX and marketing.
If Google would let it be known that you can take a bunch of IP and walk out the front door to a competitor that would be a very expensive signal.
So for them this is as much about this concrete case as it is about how Google will deal with situation where their IP grows legs.
Well, for the moment, the record is exactly the opposite of that prediction.
That is how I would calculate it...