The revelation that Tesla is collecting data on these areas in advance of its robotaxi event suggests a couple of things. First, the company wants to ensure that its demonstration of driverless technology goes off flawlessly, so it’s mapping the areas in which it could operate.

Waymo, Cruise, and all the others focus on making their autonomous driving systems work in geofenced areas of cities. But as Electrek rightly points out, Tesla has always claimed that its system would be different by using data gathered from its fleet of regular vehicle owners, who send camera images back to the company for annotation and labeling.

It’s not confirmed that they’re making high-res maps of the area, but the possibility is interesting, given that they dismissed the idea as a crutch a few years ago.