Tesla is creating its own maps for FSD — Electrek
Tesla is developing its own maps for the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system to improve the identification of speed limits, parking, and route selection. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s vice president of artificial intelligence, said this during the company’s third-quarter 2026 earnings call.
As Electrek reports, the mapping issue was raised by one of Tesla’s retail investors. He called speed limits, parking, and common routes the three biggest FSD problems and asked why the company uses maps from third-party suppliers.
Maps based on fleet data
Elluswamy agreed that Tesla should not depend on maps from other companies. According to him, the automaker is creating a new artificial intelligence-based mapping and navigation architecture. It will use data collected by the entire Tesla vehicle fleet and is also expected to take into account individual driver preferences and respond to voice commands.
The company plans for the technology to begin handling tasks at the beginning and end of trips with the release of FSD v15. In the following months, the system will gradually take over navigation, parking, and destination-related functions, Elluswamy said.
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A change in approach to detailed maps
In 2015, when launching Autopilot, Tesla told Fortune that it was creating high-precision maps with detail 100 times greater than conventional navigation maps, using data from customers’ vehicles. However, at the 2019 Autonomy Day presentation, Tesla CEO Elon Musk called the use of high-precision lane maps “a big mistake” and said that such dependence makes an autonomous driving system too vulnerable.
According to the publication, the new mapping layer will not necessarily be an HD map in the sense previously criticized by Musk: Tesla had used navigation maps before. At the same time, the company wants to use its own data to solve problems related to understanding the road environment.
Problems with speed limits
Last month, a Belgian road safety organization found that FSD exceeded the speed limit in 55% of tested 30 km/h zones in Brussels. The average speed there was 44 km/h; this was partly explained by the fact that the vehicle display showed a 50 km/h limit in most such zones.
In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is considering an investigation into claims that Tesla robotaxis exceeded speed limits in active school zones. The case concerns approximately 1,000 Model Y and Cybercab vehicles.
