"We've driven ten billion miles in simulation," says CTO Dmitri Dolgov at #TCMobility pic.twitter.com/NHtL90wJLX — Waymo (@Waymo) July 10, 2019

The company runs the equivalent of 25,000 self-driving cars 24 hours a day in the simulation. Every time one of them learns something new from what it experiences, it will share its findings with the rest of the fleet. Of course, Waymo still needs to do more real-world driving, but the company believes simulation testing is a necessary step before launching and deploy self-driving technologies. Companies developing autonomous driving systems have to find creative ways to teach their technologies after all, seeing as only a small number of places allow self-driving vehicles to conduct testing on their roads.

Unfortunately, the company didn't share what exactly its system has learned from simulation testing. But Waymo's Chief Technology Officer Dmitri Dolgov said on stage during the event: