U-turn necessary to comply with Chinese law
Despite Elon Musk's insistence that high-definition maps aren't necessary for self-driving cars, Tesla's vehicles in China will technically rely on them now through a partnership with Baidu.
While Musk believes using maps for self-driving cars is a bad idea, the Chinese government disagrees. Regulations on self-driving tech mandate that cars need to meet the so-called map-surveying qualification, which includes software like HD maps. However, this qualification is not granted to just anyone, and only 20 companies, all based in China, have it.
Tesla had to partner with one of the 20 companies with a map-surveying qualification, and ended up choosing Baidu. This may be due to Baidu Maps' popularity in China and its use of the BD-09 coordinate system, based on GCJ-02, which can convert WGS-84 coordinates into BD-09 but not vice versa.
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