The company insists it will not be rushed. That's a glaring contrast to Uber's hard-charging efforts, which skidded to a halt after one of its self-driving test cars killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona, in 2018. It's also notably different from Tesla, which incrementally updates its "Autopilot" software for cars that are already on the road, while casually reminding drivers that "Autopilot" doesn't mean the car is fully autonomous. Waymo's more measured approach could indeed be a savvy move: The Edelman Trust Barometer shows that consumer confidence in autonomous vehicles is low. In this year's edition of the survey, only 54 percent of respondents in 27 markets worldwide said they trust AVs.

A Chrysler Pacifica hubrid minivan, decked out in Waymo's colors and self-driving technology. SAN FRANCISCO -- Google's autonomous car company, Waymo, has hired Tesla engineer Satish Jeyachandran to lead its hardware team. Jeyachandran had been the director of hardware engineering at Tesla for seven years. At Waymo, he'll work with Google's proprietary LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology, radar, and camera vision -- hardware that helps self-driving cars to see the road. "I wanted to join Waymo because it has a talented, mission-driven team that has made impressive advancements in self-driving hardware. By bringing both hardware and software development under one roof, the team is laser-focused on bringing its technology to more people," Jeyachandran said in a statement on his Linkedin page.