>Waymo benefits from Google's unparalleled geospatial data.
How much of Waymo's training data is based on LIDAR mapping versus satellite/aerial/street view imagery? Before Waymo deploys in a new city, it deploys a huge fleet of cars that spend months of driving completely supervised, presumably to construct a detailed LIDAR map of the city. The fact that this needs to happen suggests Google's geospatial data moat is not as wide as it seems.
If LIDAR becomes cheap, you could imagine other car manufacturers would add it cars, initially and ostensibly to help with L2 driver aids, but with the ulterior motive of making a continuously updated map of the roads. If LIDAR were cheap enough that it could be added to every new Toyota or Ford as an afterthought, it would generate a hell of a lot more continuous mapping data than Waymo will ever have.
> Before Waymo deploys in a new city, it deploys a huge fleet of cars that spend months of driving completely supervised, presumably to construct a detailed LIDAR map of the city.
Not entirely true. From their recent "road trips" last year, the trend is they just deploy less than 10 cars in a city for a few weeks (3-4 weeks from what I recall) for mapping and validating. Then they come back after a few months to setup infrastructure for ride hailing (depot, charging, maintenance, etc.) and start service.