Three months after Mobileye’s very public split with Tesla, the driving sensor firm has another partnership: HERE. The latter will provide mapping software alongside Mobileye’s sensors to offer a more holistic autonomous driving product to prospective automotive clients.
In September Jerusalem-headquartered Mobileye fell out with Tesla, accusing it of “pushing the envelope” with regards to safety. Elon Musk’s firm snapped back, claiming Mobileye stymied attempts to build its own vision chips for Autopilot, a software which yesterday made headlines for predicting a wreck before its driver.
HERE, which was recently sold by Nokia to a German carmaker consortium of VW Group, BMW and Daimler, will integrate its HD live mapping software with Mobileye’s Roadbook. Its Open Location Platform will also be shared, as will the companies’ respective banks of data.
“We are building a state-of-the-art global HD map that is becoming the standard for autonomous driving and other IoT applications that need precise location-based information and services,” Edzard Overbeek, CEO of HERE, says.
“We are rapidly expanding this capability and I am very pleased that we can accelerate that work with Mobileye, a strategic partner which shares our view of where the automotive and other industries are going.”
Driverless cars are set to be among 2017’s biggest tech stories. An August report by Research and Markets predicted the industry’s value to reach around $41.7 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of around 15.5%. Little wonder, therefore, that firms like Mobileye and HERE are keen to pair up, in order to capture as much of the market as possible.
In May Mobileye announced that a raft of big-name automakers, including General Motors, had agreed to use its platforms for autonomous cars in 2019. It faces competition from the likes of Google parent Alphabet–and, of course, Tesla–which are rapidly developing rival products.
Mobileye’s $1bn IPO in July 2014 was the biggest–ever for an Israeli company in the United States. It is one of a number of transport technology firms to have emerged from the small country’s vibrant tech scene, alongside mapper Waze, public transport firm Moovit and Red Herring Asia 2016 winner Optibus.