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Relying on fine-grained maps always seems to me like the Wrong Way to do these things. Fine-grained maps are guaranteed to be wrong, so you can't rely on them. And if you don't rely on them then you don't need them.

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It depends on how fine-grained we're talking. If you rely on your map for absolute perception (every object must exist in your map in its current real-world state), then yes, you're in trouble. If you rely on the map as a basic prior, and perceive the world through different means, then a map (to me) is the right way to go. You avoid a whole category of computer vision in doing so.

The good news is that a point cloud map is relatively trivial to create, and the pipelines to update such a map over time are becoming more understood. There's lots of startups taking on this challenge.

It's how you start. At some point computers will have general cognition at a level that enables them to understand typical traffic situations and improvise. Right now the road network is not standardized enough for them to rely on their sensors. One way streets? Need a plan. Turn regulations? Plan! Interpretation of lights? Hah, plan. Go over a curb? Not in the plan!

They simply can't take those decisions. Yet. As companies such as this make headway, roads will become more standardized to help them along.

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