Will they be the current cars, or cars with the new next-gen hardware that are substantially safer? The cars that end up driving could signal a lot to the indus

Will they be the current cars, or cars with the new next-gen hardware that are substantially safer? The cars that end up driving could signal a lot to the industry. New lidar was spotted a few months ago and more recently on the Jaguar cars and the CEO said it’s an order of magnitude better: https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2019/04/21/new-waymo-lidar-spotted/ https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2019/04/21/new-waymo-... https://medium.com/waymo/waymo-iaa-frankfurt-2019-b3cca36d8479 https://medium.com/waymo/waymo-iaa-frankfurt-2019-b3cca36d84... One would imagine this early announcement comes in reaction to their recent “valuation” cut: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/waymo-valuation-cut-40percent-by-morgan-stanley-to-105-billion.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/waymo-valuation-cut-40percen... If Waymo starts driving without safety drivers en-masse, even on small fixed routes, it will signal certain takeover metrics have been hit. It will be interesting to see if Waymo uses existing cars (the ML and planners just got better) or if they use new hardware and signal a certain lidar improvement is necessary for achieving a viable takeover rate. The signal won’t be clear but should be there. And then it’s up to the rest of the industry to show how fast they can react to the change.