New York, New York - Self-driving cars need data and lots of it, so Waymo is starting its mapping work in parts of New York City. One main focus is on getting all the juicy data from NYC's infamous fall and winter weather.

Self-driving car company Waymo is mapping parts of New York City with its fleet of electric and hybrid-electric cars.

Waymo's blog post explained that the goal is to get a taste of the "heavy rain and dense snowfall" that testing hasn't been able to try out yet, and bustling traffic from "south of Central Park through the city to the Financial District, and out to a small section of New Jersey through the Lincoln Tunnel."

But the cars aren't quite driverless yet. Even in San Francisco, where Waymo recently got the go-ahead for commercial rides in certain areas, the cars still have to have a dedicated driver ready to take control if necessary.

Cars Tesla files recall on millions of vehicles to fix autopilot software

For now, the two types of Waymo's self-driving cars will be manually driven by real people to collect driving data in downtown New York.

The new info will feed the Waymo Driver with more numbers to crunch, which will let it learn and improve so that one day soon, the company's automated driving system might offer fully autonomous rides no matter what weather or traffic is bogging down the roads.

Once mapping is complete, more tests and trials are next, but the goal is to get Waymo's self-driving fleet into NYC traffic as soon as possible.