HD Mapping: Friend or Foe of Robocars?

The world now knows that Tesla's Elon Musk thinks that high-precision GPS maps for self-driving cars are a "really bad idea." During the company's Autonomy Day in April, Musk made it abundantly clear that too much dependency on HD Maps can turn an autonomous vehicle (AV) into a "system that becomes extremely brittle," making it more difficult to adapt. The rest of the automotive industry, however, pretty much believes that AV could use an HD map as, at least, a backup system. "HD Maps are all about adding intelligence to improve the performance and safety of automated vehicles," said Phil Magney, founder and principal at VSI Labs. As Matt Preyss, Product Marketing Manager at HERE, explained, HD maps are not the familiar GPS helpers used by human drivers.