AFAIK all the big companies working on this problem include high-definition mapping as a major component. The problem is gathering that data without having an a

AFAIK all the big companies working on this problem include high-definition mapping as a major component. The problem is gathering that data without having an actual LiDAR. So some companies like Waymo will literally just have cars with LiDARs drive all around every street and map it for them. This is great but means they're limited by when they travelled the road and conditions at the time. Ideally, you have a mapping system that is constantly updating (every time your fleet drives by something new like construction on the road it auto-updates the map). Comma.ai is working on a vision+GPS Kalman filter solution along these lines up to 10 cm accuracy. I'd guess Tesla is as well. And then yes, after that the vision would be primarily for localization.