Mapbox Dash

Beautiful maps, live traffic, music and voice

available on:
Android
Linux

In-Car Driver Experience

Navigation is central to driving and every car should have a live-updating map tailored to the brand and purpose of the vehicle. We designed Mapbox Dash from the ground up, building on live data sourced from millions of sensors and a gorgeous design that is fully customizable to match the trim of each model.

Application Design

Ready-to-deploy application for in-car infotainment, sensible defaults, gorgeous looks out of the box, full customizability for look and feel and service integrations.

Live Updating Maps

Live traffic and streaming map updates built on the vast footprint of the Mapbox platform with over 100bn real time sensor readings per week.

Features

Speed limits, fuel, parking, streaming music and in-dash convenience for everyday use. Integrations for EV, offroad, autonomous and more provide vehicle specific utility.

“With Mapbox Dash we can create a customized navigation experience”
"Mapbox Dash delivers an efficient and smooth customizable foundation for our digital location ecosystem and enabled us to launch Maps+ within months with an over-the-air update to the car. With Mapbox Dash we can create a customized navigation experience, by creating a completely GM specific design and integrating a vehicle-specific voice assistant, streaming music, and other services"

Santiago Chamorro, Vice President, Global Connected Services at GM.

Live traffic and accurate routes, powered by AI

Drivers avoid congestion and arrive on time with live traffic created from the over 300 million miles of anonymized telemetry data we collect each day. Billions of probe points collected each day are fed into our processing pipeline to generate traffic. AI filters, aggregates, and predicts live traffic conditions on road segments notifying drivers of the fastest route.

Lane level guidance

Drivers see exactly which lane to use for upcoming maneuvers, including complex maneuvers, avoiding last minute lane changes, and delays caused by missed turns.

30
mph
30
mph

Speed limit alerts

Warn drivers about upcoming speed limit changes and alerts when exceeding posted limits.

Voice assistance

Drivers can use voice assistant to search for new destinations, or add stops to an existing route maximizing time with hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

 Navigate 
 to 
 Madison 
 Square 
 Gardens 

Places and Autocomplete Search

Dash suggests search results automatically, resulting in a faster destination input. Places like restaurants, cafe’s, shops, sights, and parks include photos, ratings, opening hours and a short description to provide a preview of the place, and then just tap to navigate.

Music

In-map audio controls allow the drivers to see the current song playing and skip forward/backward and pause/play songs with minimum interruption from navigation. Audio controls support any sources on your head unit including streaming music, podcast, bluetooth and radio.

On-device routing in cellular dead zones

On-device routing reroutes drivers without using a network connection, saving bandwidth and preventing users from getting lost in cellular dead zones.

High precision localization

Dash’s enhanced location engine better guide drivers in dense urban environments with poor GPS signal and through complex maneuvers that traditionally make guidance confusing — such as sharp turns, narrow exits, and adjacent parallel roads. The application has direct access to the vehicle’s high precision GPS, IMU and wheel sensors resulting in a precise localization and orientation of the vehicle on the map.

Designed to run in-car

Mapbox Dash runs on Linux and Android infotainment systems and can be configured to the car’s screen size, CPU, GPU, memory, storage and network configuration. Dash deploys and updates over the air with data updates separate from application updates.

Mobile companion apps

Use the Mapbox Mobile SDKs to seamlessly integrate Dash with the car’s mobile companion application allowing the user to plan trips, seamlessly send destinations from mobile to the car, get walking directions to the car and from the car to the trip destination.

Instant map updates and driver feedback

Dash learns from driver behavior in a privacy safe way. Drivers can submit feedback about encountered road situations with two taps. Mapbox incorporates feedback and sensor readings continuously into the map and pushes improvements live to Dash applications daily.

Augmented Reality Navigation

Combine Dash with the Mapbox Vision SDK to provide contextual navigation instructions with augmented reality visual or audio cues. This blends guidance directly into the video stream of the car or into the heads up display and displays lane level instructions and turn arrows as virtual 3D objects in the real world space.

Built on the Mapbox Platform

Mapbox Dash builds on top of Mapbox SDKs orchestrating Navigation, Maps, Search and Vision into an intuitive and customizable user experience. It gives car makers the best of both worlds: a turn key solution for fast deployment and extensive customization to create an experience unique to their brand.

Design tailored to a car’s unique brand

Mapbox Dash enables car makers to craft interfaces that match the brand and the style of the vehicle – a glossy and refined look for luxury models or a rugged, realistic 3D terrain view for off-road models. The map becomes the canvas for vehicle specific features like charging, fuel, predictive maintenance, offroad, automated driving integration, and augmented reality navigation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Mapbox Dash?

Mapbox Dash is a turnkey navigation application for automotive infotainment systems available for Android and Linux. It combines a customizable UI, full featured navigation, and live data in one turnkey package ready for car makers to offer to their customers.

Dash comes with lane level navigation, search with rich POI data, live traffic and incidents, speed limit alerts and voice instructions. It provides options to avoid ferries, toll roads and highways and comes with optional integrations for AR Navigation with the Mapbox Vision SDK, mobile integration with Mapbox Search and Maps SDKs, Alexa and audio services such as Spotify, Sirius XM and Pandora. 

Mapbox Dash builds on the Mapbox platform and wraps Mapbox SDKs for search, maps, navigation, and vision into a customizable application for Android and Linux. This includes the Mapbox Conflation & Corrections Engine for same day map updates based on our sensor network and end user feedback.

What is the benefit of Mapbox Dash?

Customizable and turn key. Mapbox Dash uniquely combines customizability with off the shelf availability for in-car navigation systems. Instead of building a navigation system from scratch, car makers can simply install a customized application on the head unit and thus dramatically accelerate the time to market from years to months without compromising quality or feature set.

Continuous feature updates. Mapbox Dash includes frequent software updates with continuous feature and performance enhancements based on metrics and user feedback. This gives drivers access to the latest features and ensures an excellent user experience built on data driven improvements.

Live data from sensors and humans. Dash builds on the Mapbox live data platform that incorporates the sensor readings of over 600 million monthly active devices, 20 billion real time probe data points per day, and map data aggregated from over 2,000 sources. Like all navigation applications built with Mapbox, Dash includes a Feedback Button, allowing drivers to report updates on road conditions or changes in the road network with a simple tap. Mapbox validates and incorporates these reports back into the map on an ongoing basis, ensuring the most up-to-data for all drivers.

Designed to delight customers. Mapbox Dash enables car makers to offer an in-car experience that surpasses the user experience of mobile navigation applications, integrates car maker specific services, and conveys the unique brand of each vehicle line.

Should I use the Mapbox Navigation SDK or Mapbox Dash?

This depends on two factors: (1) the level of customization developers require and (2) the level of investment developers are ready to make for an in-house or third party build.

With Mapbox Dash, car makers can customize every aspect of the interface design including the visual map, fonts, and colors. They can decide which add-on features to enable, like music integration and voice integration. With Mapbox Dash, Mapbox engineers and designers will do the customization based on car makers' direction. This same team provides continuous application updates throughout the lifetime of the application providing drivers access to enhancements and new features that keep the experience fresh.

With an in-house Mapbox Navigation SDK build, car makers' engineers and designers will take on the work giving them a maximum amount of freedom for the design and available features in the app. This is a good option for developers that have unique requirements for their vehicles and a team with the right technical expertise available.

Sometimes a combination of using Mapbox SDKs and Dash is the best choice. We’re here to provide guidance in making the right decision based on specific needs.

What parts of Mapbox Dash can be customized?

  • Every aspect of the map can be changed with Mapbox Studio: fonts, colors, zoom level dependent visibility. Car makers can inject proprietary and third party data using Mapbox MTS - for example dealerships, offroad trails, or weather.
  • Colors, paddings, fonts, and button treatments of the application UI can be adjusted and made to reflect the infotainment system’s design language seamlessly.
  • Add-on features (all features outside of search, visual maps and navigation, so for instance: Alexa integration, speed limits, audio integration) can be enabled/disabled.
  • Custom services - for instance a fuel payment service, a charge station service or a hazard warning service - can be integrated.

How can I test drive Mapbox Dash?

Contract us to set up a test drive over video call. Let us know about your company and what you’re looking to bring to your customers. After the test drive, we can provide a demo app to install on Android or Linux head units.

My company is in delivery or ride hailing - is Mapbox Dash a good option for my drivers?

No. Mapbox Dash is designed with the passenger vehicle in mind for daily personal driving and trip planning. For delivery and ride hailing use cases, take a look at embedding navigation directly into your app with the Mapbox Navigation SDK. And if you’re a delivery business in particular, also consider adopting Straightaway, a turnkey navigation application for logistics. Drop us a line and we can help you figure out the best choice for your business.

Can I use Mapbox SDKs together with Mapbox Dash?

Yes. In fact, in a typical configuration, a car maker will adopt Mapbox Dash for the infotainment unit and then add in vehicle specific integrations like AR navigation, mobile integration, or rear seat entertainment with a custom application based on Mapbox SDKs.

How can I get Mapbox Dash for my car?

Mapbox Dash is made available to consumers in partnership with car makers. A car maker licenses Mapbox Dash from Mapbox and makes it available to their customers. Today, Mapbox Dash is available as “Maps+” in partnership with GM for Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac. More car makers are soon to be announced. Contact us if you’re a car maker and you’d like to enable Mapbox Dash for your customers.

Does Mapbox Dash come with its own audio player?

No. Rather than integrating a full audio player, Mapbox Dash integrates with the existing audio player on the infotainment system and provides a UI widget with common controls. This way a driver can view the current track and artist, skip forward/backward and pause the track. Depending on the audio source, additional features like track listings or playlists may be available.

Which geographic regions are supported by Mapbox Dash?

Mapbox Dash is available for North America and Europe today and will be available soon for Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Contact us to discuss the specific geographic requirements for your project.

Does Mapbox Dash work with Apple Carplay or Google Android Auto?

No. Mapbox Dash runs directly on the infotainment unit and therefore does not require a smartphone mirroring technology like Apple Carplay or Google Android Auto to display navigation in the car’s infotainment screen. This is a key benefit of Mapbox Dash as this (1) removes the hassle of connecting the phone, (2) avoids the phone covering up vital car functions on the infotainment screen, and (3) keeps the phone's functions available for use rather than occupied by mirroring to the car’s screen.

What’s Mapbox Dash pricing?

Car makers license Mapbox Dash on a per-car per month or annual basis. Like for SDK’s, Mapbox provides periodical updates throughout the lifetime of a vehicle line with feature enhancements and performance improvements for Dash. Third party services Alexa and Spotify are to be licensed separately by the car maker. For detailed pricing information, drop us a line.