What this means is that the automaker is already gathering enough data to be able to create its own maps or a routing engine that will help in navigating parking or private spaces much easier for Tesla vehicles, resulting in a smoother Smart Summon experience.
Tesla currently uses Google Maps as the base and to pinpoint the points of interests, but the navigation data and routing engine are provided by another software company named MapBox which has been working on these projects for about a decade now.
In 2018 MapBox acquired the routing engine named “Vallhalla,” which is now part of the core API MapBox provides to users and enterprise clients like Tesla, Facebook, and many more. MapBox claims it gathers data from millions of devices that its application is a part of and that it reaches at least 600 million people a month.
“Our maps learn from every application they’re embedded in. We use real-time data from 600 million MAUs to ship hundreds of thousands of map updates per day so developers can build precise maps that perform across platforms.”
Ira Ehrenpreis, who was the actual owner of the first-ever production Tesla Model 3 and later on gifted his spot to Elon Musk actually sits on the board of both Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and MapBox, so the bond between the companies is strong — but with billions of miles of Autopilot data, Tesla will want to separate itself just like it did when it developed its own self-driving software and ended the partnership with Mobileye.
