[michaelt]

Google/Waymo actually started way earlier, and had fistfuls of cash from the very start.

Google hired a bunch of people who'd done well in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge [1] - including Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson who lead the winning team.

Thrun is also behind Google Street View which in some regards [2] looks a lot like a self-driving-car sensor suite. So Google was having LIDAR-equipped, high-precision-GPS-equipped cars drive every street in every prosperous country, starting back in 2007. Uber wasn't even founded until 2009.

Other Google hires had a similar background - such as Anthony Levandowski who competed in the DARPA Grand Challenge with an autonomous motorcycle. He later gained fame after being caught stealing a bunch of LIDAR schematics and similar trade secrets while leaving Google for Uber.

We also know from court documents that Google was throwing around mountains of cash, even when the self-driving-car division had no revenue. Waymo was set up as an "internal startup" giving employees "equity" so Levandowski left not just with internal documents but also with over $100 million.

That's a stark contrast to a lot of other players who'd need to show investors a lot more to get a lot less. This endless money was undoubtedly helpful in giving them the confidence to design for L5 autonomy from the start, no need to design a lesser system to get the money coming in early. And of course if you can pay $100 million for one guy, you're not going to baulk at the cost of a few $10k LIDARs so long as the people making them claim the price will fall to $200 for automotive quantities.

The 2005 Grand Challenge simplified the driving problem a great deal - no pedestrians or moving vehicles to deal with, safe and driveable route guaranteed to exist - but it did a lot to focus development efforts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge_(2005) [2] https://schlaff.com/wp/the-secret-to-googles-self-driving-ca...

[JumpCrisscross]

> the confidence to design for L5 autonomy from the start

L4. Waymo can't "drive everywhere in all conditions" [1]. (Nobody can. Not to L4 standards of never requiring "you to take over driving.")

[1] https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update

[michaelt]

I thought L4 was Tesla Autopilot style, someone in the driving seat, hands on the wheel, ready to take over with half a second's notice, and taking liability for insurance purposes? And the geofenced "freeway driving only" stuff some German carmakers are coming out with?

Whereas Waymo's taxis don't have anyone in the driving seat at all?

[Philpax]

I was under the same impression, but the parent poster is right: the main difference between L4 and L5 is universal applicability. Waymo is L4 as it can drive without a driver, but only in certain areas.

[gizmondo]

> I thought L4 was Tesla Autopilot style, someone in the driving seat, hands on the wheel, ready to take over with half a second's notice, and taking liability for insurance purposes?

That's L2.

[tremon]

> Nobody can

Do you mean this in the sense "even humans can't do this, it's too strict a requirement" or in the sense "no self-driving car has achieved this yet"?

[rsanek]

it can't drive everywhere now, but that doesn't mean they're not designing for that future.