If they have a pre-existing database of every road, sure. And if it's kept up-to-date at all times in all vehicles.

spankalee an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Waymo does have a database of every today they drive, but for this they don't need one.

If the car comes to a road covered with water, and that road is in the database, and the water level appears low compared to the historical level of the road in the DB, then the car could cross. if the road is not in the DB, then a different decision might be made.

This is similar to humans: you might make different decisions depending on whether you know the road well or not.

▲

mortenjorck 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Isn’t that the Waymo data model, though? They extensively pre-drive every new market, building dense volumetric maps of the entire service area before they begin service, so they essentially do have that database of every road (that they drive on).

▲

filoleg 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Granted, I am not sure exactly how Waymo operates, but I thought that the extensive testing was mostly for legal reasons+just handling edge cases.

I am saying this, because I noticed that they typically start with a low-tier restrictive permit to operate (with a rather small number of cars in the fleet). Then they run it for a year or two, iron out edge cases particular to a given city (e.g., climate particularities, crazy spaghetti junctions in ATL, etc.), and log a lot of data. Then they take that data, go to the city/state, say "we have all this data that demonstrates we were very above the board while running the test pilot program, we are safe, and now we want to expand out of a very limited test pilot program."

And then it either goes well (Bay Area, LA, etc.) or goes off the rails for other reasons (often failing earlier for entirely unexpected reasons, like the pushback against it from taxi driver unions in NYC).

My point being, I could be entirely wrong, but I don't think that they literally map every single inch of the road before being allowed to operate. I just don't see it as being possible in any large populated city, given how often things change there. Just in 3 years living at one apartment in Seattle, I had a road directly adjacent to me changed from 2-way to 1-way, and then had 3-4 lanes that were basically highway entrances/exits (a block away from me) created and the whole area being rerouted entirely.

	▲	flutas 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Waymo explicitly lidar scans and "HD maps" the area: https://waymo.com/blog/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-map... Tesla is less "HD", they have standard maps like we all think of, and a lane level "see-ahead" system where they basically just grab a satellite image tile, and align it with what the car sees for "FSD".
	▲	asdff an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They actually do significant mapping. Where it operates currently it is not unusual to see this. It will be a waymo with a human driver operating someplace not currently in the waymo zone and clearly not en route to any maintenance facility either. Stuff like windy canyon roads with no thru access anywhere that are currently gated away, you might see a waymo with a human today. Waymo is not the only company making lidar maps right now either. I've seen UPS deliver trucks with retrofitted lidar scanners on the roof now. I've even seen this on a police car already, looked like a black rooftop industrial ventilator on a 2ft mast installed directly on the crown victoria roof.