BERLIN—German auto supplier Bosch GmbH and the Dutch digital
mapping company TomTom have agreed to work together to develop
high-definition digital maps needed for self-driving cars, the
companies said Tuesday.
"We will only be able to have self-driving vehicles on the
highway in 2020 with highly accurate maps," Dirk Hocheisel, Bosch's
general manager, said in a statement.
Under the partnership Bosch will provide technology to make
TomTom's digital maps more accurate and better able to incorporate
data produced by an automobile's systems.
The arrangement comes as car manufacturers push to perfect
autopilot systems and deploy some features already, such as
self-parking cars or technology that allows cars to automatically
stay in a lane while traveling on the highway at high speed. A
major component of self-driving cars is the high-definition digital
map, which produces a 3-D real-time digital representation of the
environment.
As part of this drive, BMW AG, Audi AG and Daimler AG are in
talks with Nokia Oy to acquire the Finnish group's Nokia Here
digital mapping service, the world leader in high-definition maps.
People familiar with the takeover talks say negotiations are in the
final stages but that it isn't clear when a decision will be
made.
Bosch, the world's biggest automotive supplier by sales, said it
has been field testing mapping technology in self-driving cars in
Germany and the U.S., and is now in the process of mapping out
roads.
"We want to have highly accurate maps for self-driving vehicles
of all highways and similar roads in Germany by the end of 2015,"
said Jan Maarten de Vries, vice president of TomTom's automotive
division.
After Bosch and TomTom map Germany, they will move on to map
highways and major roads in Europe and the U.S., the companies
said.
TomTom is the second-largest high-definition mapmaker by sales
after Nokia Here.
Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com
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