HERE wants to explore uses of anonymized sensor data from Audi, BMW, and Daimler vehicles for its next generation maps supporting autonomous driving
Starting today, it's a new world for HERE... And we intend to map just about everything in it, for you and everyone else.
Context & Ripple Effects
The sensor-data plan only makes sense because of who owns HERE: after the German trio and Baidu were reported preparing a bid at "considerably more than €2B" (reported bid of considerably more than €2B), the automakers took the map vendor in-house — and this announcement is the payoff, turning their own production fleets into HERE's data source. It follows directly on HERE's earlier move to fit Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz cars with sensors to capture traffic conditions and driver behavior (fitting the three brands' cars with sensors).
First-order effects
- Audi, BMW, and Daimler vehicles on the road become live collection nodes for anonymized sensor data, giving HERE a proprietary feed its next-generation autonomous-driving maps can be built and refreshed from.
Second-order effects
- Rival mapping efforts must match fleet-scale data access — HERE's later tie-up with Mobileye to pool high-definition mapping data for self-driving cars (Mobileye partnership) shows the answer is data-sharing alliances, not solo mapmaking.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, HD maps stop being a product a vendor sells and become jointly owned infrastructure, with automaker consortia controlling both the fleet that generates the data and the map layer autonomy depends on.
The trend: Automotive mapping is shifting from vendor-built products toward automaker-controlled sensor networks, where each brand's fleet is the update mechanism for the shared HD map.