HERE Technologies Says Your Car’s Native Nav Will Soon Blow Your Phone’s Google Maps Away

HERE is a privately held mapping data company commanding mapping revenues in automotive that are now more than double those of TomTom, four to five times those of Google Maps, and ten times what Mapbox has to work with. HERE Technologies is owned by BMW, Volkswagen Group, Mercedes, Intel Capital, and NTT among others, but it supplies the entire industry, and it’s got big plans to boost mapping performance in the software-defined cars of the future.

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Built-In Bests Brought-In

Remember back when your built-in navigation system had to periodically get new map CD-ROM discs? Even nowadays, many built-in map databases tend to get updated periodically via over-the-air updates. Meanwhile, every time you open Apple Maps or Google Maps, they instantly access the latest online map (as do built-in systems powered by HERE, pending connectivity).

HERE says soon it will be able to offer similar live mapping, and when that occurs, the company contends its maps will be superior because they’ll be updated more frequently—even continuously. The Google/Apple/Waze apps may all tap into the phone movements of all your fellow motorists, inferring traffic patterns from this data. But HERE takes in data from millions of the cars themselves, sensing what they sense.

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Real-Time Ground Truth

Setting its AI bots on this ultrarich data stream allows HERE to perceive and check a developing roadblock or closure on a busy road within minutes, or within hours on less traveled ones. It’s harder to verify such data simply from a user phone slowing down and maybe changing direction. And having precise, lane-specific high-definition maps allows an autonomous car to navigate complex intersections either in snow or when following tall vehicles that obscure camera views of the lane markings.

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Time for UniMap

Some automakers still purchase and maintain multiple map databases for their high-feature cars. One supports navigation, another handles basic driver-assist systems, and then for those offering any sort of autonomy, there would be a third (this is a big reason almost nobody offers an assisted driving mode that can follow the navigation). But the SDVs of the near (2–3 years) future will tap into a single unified database, utilizing whatever level of definition they need for each of these tasks, drawing on data that’s vastly fresher. Not only that, but combining its rich information on hill grades, traffic speeds, and possibly even temperatures, this data has the potential to greatly improve the accuracy of electric-vehicle range prediction, as computed by the in-vehicle systems. CarPlay, Android Auto, and phone apps can’t do that.

Global-ish

HERE has the USA and the vast majority of Europe already mapped to this high-definition scale. And in support of its clients’ needs, the company is currently expanding its mapping databases into Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America—though focusing first on cities and the major roads connecting them in these regions. By comparison, TomTom’s high-definition Orbis map database is complete for Germany with other European countries and the USA expected soon.

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HERE Maps on Your Computer/Phone?

There is now an alternative to Apple Maps or GoogleMaps available for personal computers and smart phones, called HERE WeGo. Give it a try at HERE WeGo.