[amelius]

I'm always wondering how Google's car will certify when new releases are made. Consider that an autonomous car will need X hours/miles of driving before it will be certified. Now, if Google updates 1 line of code, the whole certification process has to start all over.

[maxerickson]

I would think the certification might not exactly look like that. At least, they aren't going to release every revision if the certification is like that.

I sort of think they are collecting the super detailed sensor data so that they can play it back into new versions of their software and see if it notices things earlier and makes better choices and such. A mass market version needs to be able to function on environmental data (like a tree across the road), so I don't think they are building a perfect map to have as a crutch.

[amelius]

Yes, I thought about replaying the information too. But the problem is that every different reaction by the car will lead to new input from the environment. And you can't store what you didn't anticipate :)