Google sister-company Waymo is getting used to backhanded complements from rivals, with Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess latest to dish out the praise. He credited Waymo with a one to two-year lead over the field in autonomous driving, certainly over Volkswagen itself, while pointing out that the future would depend on how regulation pans out. There may have been a twinkle in his eye as he said that given how badly Volkswagen fell afoul of diesel emissions regulation in the scandal that blew up in September 2015, but also how unexpectedly quickly the group has recovered from that. Just two months earlier the chief executive of Chinese start-up Pony-ai James Peng had been crediting Waymo with leading the pack of US…