Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Phoenix has the perfect climate for self-driving cars. It will require a major technological leap in order for them to succeed in the "real world" (fog, rain, snow, etc).
Disclosure: I work for Waymo. We handle both dense fog and heavy rain on the latest vehicles. The best blog post is probably https://waymo.com/blog/2021/11/a-fog-blog/ but you can find a lot of videos in the rain. Snow and very cold weather is a challenge for sensor cleaning. We've done some testing in both NYC and Buffalo ( https://waymo.com/blog/2023/11/road-trip-how-our-cross-count... ) to collect data.
Winter here changes daily between
- no road lines visible
- snow packed into ice randomly making the road a a camouflage pattern
- snow is fresh/deep so no road is visible and you navigate based on the slight hump in the snow where you know there's a curb
- same as above, but instead of a curb a slight indent where there's a ditch
- slush piles outside the tire lanes, which if hit will suck you in or cause you to spin out
- ice/snow on hills, so time your arrival for rolling stops at intersections because stopping is not an option
- active snowfall (limited camera vision, and I'm guessing reduced/useless signal from lidar)
- hail
- sporadic black ice (its easy to slow down when its icy everywhere, but knowing when and where black ice is likely when it's sporadic is a skill)
- the "lanes" formed by peoples tires in the snow often don't align with the official road, and sometimes a lane goes missing in this situation
And all that's after you deal with sensor cleaning.