HERE Technologies, the world’s leading location and maps platform (see here: HERE Maintains Location Platform Leadership), held its annual HERE Directions meet in Prague last week. It was a great showcase of how location tech and maps have evolved and HERE’s 40-year journey from making maps the traditional way to using the AI/ML-driven automated UniMap technology. The meet also brought to focus the growing number of HERE partners and customers from automotive to enterprise (transport, logistics, supply chain and more). Some of the prominent names include Uber, Siemens Healthineers, DHL, Descartes Labs, Lotus Cars Europe, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Mercedes-Benz AG and Scania Group.

A Counterpoint team of analysts also attended the meet and interacted with a whole spectrum of officials from the location value chain, besides witnessing live demonstrations of products and services integrating HERE’s offerings, and keynotes from HERE executives, like Bart Sweerman, Gino Ferru, Remco Timmer and Severin Bredahl-Banovic.

Here is an exclusive interview with HERE VP and GM Severin Bredahl-Banovic on his thoughts on HERE Directions 2023 and beyond.

Some highlights from the keynotes:

• HERE’s vision of location intelligence spans from automotive to different industry verticals and end consumers.
• In mobility, it is powering L3+ automated driving with AI-powered digital cockpit UX and location-aware intelligent fleet management.
• Across industries, it is about logistics, indoor maps, fleet optimization and accurate intermodal and efficient multi-modal location experiences with sustainability goals in mind.
• HERE showcased the full range of its content, services portfolio, tools and platform.
• HERE gave a glimpse of the unprecedented scale of its location solutions:
  • 180 million vehicles globally across 50+ brands with HERE solutions
  • 40 million+ powered by HERE’s real-time data and services
  • 34 million+ equipped with HERE Automated Driving maps, up from 22 million a year ago
  • 21 OEMs using HERE ISA maps
  • 1,300+ enterprise customers using HERE maps, location content and services
  • 550,000 direct developers on the platform
  • 153 billion API calls per month

• To efficiently scale further, HERE earlier this year unveiled UniMap, a new flexible, modular architecture built from the ground up, with automated map-making capabilities powered by AI/ML integrated with HERE data and services. The dynamic data is refreshed in less than 60 seconds.
• UniMap consists of more than 800 location-centric attributes across 200 categories.
• UniMap thus is able to power a multitude of experiences, from scalable automated driving, in-vehicle digital UX, and EV services (charging, routing, etc) to custom private maps.
• Private maps are the most interesting capability of UniMap, allowing customers to customize their maps by adding private layers and attributes at scale.

Customers and Partners Showcase

• HERE showcased numerous key partnerships and customer wins in 2023.
• On the transport and logistics, and supply chain sides, some of these include Uber, Amazon, SiemensHealth, Descartes, Leogistics, DHL and Holcim.
• On the automotive side, these include wins in BMW Digital Cockpit + HD Maps, Lotus Eletre EV with an almost full stack from EV services to navigation, Mercedes Benz L3+ cars in Europe and US, and NIO.
• On the stage, BMW Group’s Head of Automated Driving Stephan Durach talked about the next phase of the industry in terms of Software Defined Vehicle (SDV), like BMW’s NEUE KlASSE powered by HERE solutions.

• Daimler Truck’s Andreas Mink highlighted that the era of L3+ automated trucks is upon us as fleets are beginning to face a dearth of truck drivers alongside meeting goals like efficiency and sustainability. HERE is closely working with them to enable highly automated solutions to address these challenges and goals.
• China’s hottest EV startup NIO’s executive Mirko Reuter talked about NIO’s advanced architecture being completely driven by software and fully upgradeable with a full scale of sensors and advanced compute NVIDIA Drive Orin, which features 68 billion transistors and HERE’s HD maps for advanced SDV experiences.
• Also on the stage was Lisa Åbom, the CEO of an interesting company, NIRA Dynamics, who highlighted the importance of sensor data extraction from the cars and how critical it is for safety in the coming automated driving era.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) GM Michael Kopenec showcased AWS’ symbiotic relationship with HERE to provide real-time visibility of the entire supply chain leveraging HERE solutions in AWS cloud and power customers such as PostNL and Geome.

• what3words CCO Clare Jones talked about redefining the address system with HERE as a premier partner to integrate its solutions into leading OEMs such as JLR, Mercedes-Benz AG and more.

Wrapping up

• With its new UniMap, HERE is taking map, location data and services integration to a new level for mobility applications.
• The breadth and depth of HERE’s location platform capabilities match its scale and large number of partners and customers.
• HERE has been traditionally strong in the automotive sector and now is driving and riding the digital transformation wave as vehicles become connected, automated, smart and electric.
• In the industrial and enterprise sector, HERE has showcased its influence by working with leading players, from Amazon and Uber to DHL, Salesforce and Mitsubishi.
• Consumer is one area where HERE has been used indirectly but would like to build on the momentum to compete at the same scale as Google or beautiful customizations from Mapbox for app developers among others.