TomServo
Active Member
I'm sure Tesla has a plan but just think of what this could look like with 500,000 M3 owners roaming all over America usually without ANY thought given on planning a trip like an airline pilot.
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igotzzoom
Active Member
Yeah. The article itself wasn't so damning, but the headline makes it sound like a total catastrophe.
gnelson
Member
My first road trip was 6000 mi, and I did not struggle. I used to be a road warrior. If I only had an ICE, I would fly. Now hat I have a Model S, I am thrilled to take road trips.
As I was going over the mountains between Barstow and Las Vegas, I was laughing at all the overheated ICE cars on the side of the road.
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Is it worth 50 bucks for gasoline to be able to separate your fuel stops with meal stops?
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
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Drucifer
Active Member
The article is a takeoff inspired by a children's book. It is merely a pop culture reference.
http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Terrible-Horrible-Good-Very/dp/0689711735
http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Terrible-Horrible-Good-Very/dp/0689711735
The headline is clearly a reference to the children's book. The article itself, not so much. I've found myself thinking on several occasions that there's a battle going on within the staff of Car and Driver over Tesla in particular and electric cars in general. Sometimes they are very enthusiastic about the Model S, sometimes they make fun of it, and sometimes they do both.
Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that a car magazine's use case for a car is different than most private citizens' use case. Car magazine writers drive cars all day every day, and they expect a car to be driveable all day every day, with only the briefest possible stops for fuel and junk food. Electric cars don't work that way, which is fine for normal people, but it's not fine for car magazines.
By the way I'll be interested to see if they put the P85D on the track at Virginia International Raceway during this year's Lightning Lap festivities.
I haven't read all of this topic so I'm sure it's been said, but I just posted on the Tesla forum my own recent experience down I5 with the nav "backtracking" me to my previous SC and apparently this is a well known bug. One is supposed to click the "Remove Superchargers" button to remove the already visited SCs from the nav. I hadn't been pressing that button because I assumed it would remove *all* the super chargers from the list. One can also just reenter the destination after each SC visit and it will be fine.
Mayhemm
Model S P85+ "Lola"
Here we....go.
I’m really having trouble understanding Tesla’s software QA process. Features like Valet Mode are delayed and delayed and delayed, presumably to allow time for adequate testing. Yet, we are also presented with the hot mess that is the post-6.2 navigation system. Let it henceforth be known that “Beta” in Tesla-speak translates to “Yeah, we didn’t even road test this thing”. What happened here? Did Tesla bow to owner pressure to release features faster? WTF?
Let me preface this by saying I am not the typical use-case for this system; I am very much an outlier. I live in central Canada. There are NO Superchargers here. There are NO destination chargers here. Communities are very far apart (>100 miles).
Still, I have to say that “Range Assurance Mode” or as I call it “Rage Assurance Mode” is an insult to Tesla’s user base and a gut punch to the company’s credibility. “Car gets better over time”, my left *$#&.
First, the trip planner. A graph that predicts your SOC when arriving at your destination and compares your actual energy use to what the system estimates you would need. This seems like it would be a useful feature. Unfortunately, as deployed it is dangerously optimistic and, somehow, also pessimistic. I will program a route and find it expects me to have sufficient SOC at my destination (As I mentioned before, communities are far apart here, so this will likely be less than 20%). What I DIDN’T expect was the rate at which said estimate fell. No matter the conditions, no matter my speed nor the ambient temperature nor the weather conditions, the predicted SOC would fall around 1% every few miles. The exact opposite of my stress level, in fact. One time I was driving the speed limit, on flat ground, on a calm 72 degree day, and the predicted SOC dropped by SEVEN percentage points in as many miles! My efficiency was going up, yet my SOC at arrival was falling! How exactly is this supposed to help with range anxiety again?! Also, I frequently arrive at my destination with adequate SOC, despite the system saying I would be at up to -5% SOC!
Anytime I take a roadtrip, I am traveling a long distance (>300 miles) with exactly one EVSE at my starting point and one at my destination. There are no others within range and, since these are not Tesla EVSEs, they are not included in the Nav computer. So, in addition to the terrifying drop in predicted SOC, I have to deal with constant messages of “You are leaving the range of any charging station. Please turn back now to avoid running out of charge” and I have to, as Elon Musk puts it, “willingly choose to run out of charge”.
You think it’s annoying to have the Nav tell you to return to a Supercharger you just left or stop at one that’s 100 miles out of your way? The system frequently tries to route me through the Supercharger in Billings, MT! An impossible detour of over 2000 miles!!!
Needless to say, I turned this dangerous POS off.
I’m really having trouble understanding Tesla’s software QA process. Features like Valet Mode are delayed and delayed and delayed, presumably to allow time for adequate testing. Yet, we are also presented with the hot mess that is the post-6.2 navigation system. Let it henceforth be known that “Beta” in Tesla-speak translates to “Yeah, we didn’t even road test this thing”. What happened here? Did Tesla bow to owner pressure to release features faster? WTF?
Let me preface this by saying I am not the typical use-case for this system; I am very much an outlier. I live in central Canada. There are NO Superchargers here. There are NO destination chargers here. Communities are very far apart (>100 miles).
Still, I have to say that “Range Assurance Mode” or as I call it “Rage Assurance Mode” is an insult to Tesla’s user base and a gut punch to the company’s credibility. “Car gets better over time”, my left *$#&.
First, the trip planner. A graph that predicts your SOC when arriving at your destination and compares your actual energy use to what the system estimates you would need. This seems like it would be a useful feature. Unfortunately, as deployed it is dangerously optimistic and, somehow, also pessimistic. I will program a route and find it expects me to have sufficient SOC at my destination (As I mentioned before, communities are far apart here, so this will likely be less than 20%). What I DIDN’T expect was the rate at which said estimate fell. No matter the conditions, no matter my speed nor the ambient temperature nor the weather conditions, the predicted SOC would fall around 1% every few miles. The exact opposite of my stress level, in fact. One time I was driving the speed limit, on flat ground, on a calm 72 degree day, and the predicted SOC dropped by SEVEN percentage points in as many miles! My efficiency was going up, yet my SOC at arrival was falling! How exactly is this supposed to help with range anxiety again?! Also, I frequently arrive at my destination with adequate SOC, despite the system saying I would be at up to -5% SOC!
Anytime I take a roadtrip, I am traveling a long distance (>300 miles) with exactly one EVSE at my starting point and one at my destination. There are no others within range and, since these are not Tesla EVSEs, they are not included in the Nav computer. So, in addition to the terrifying drop in predicted SOC, I have to deal with constant messages of “You are leaving the range of any charging station. Please turn back now to avoid running out of charge” and I have to, as Elon Musk puts it, “willingly choose to run out of charge”.
You think it’s annoying to have the Nav tell you to return to a Supercharger you just left or stop at one that’s 100 miles out of your way? The system frequently tries to route me through the Supercharger in Billings, MT! An impossible detour of over 2000 miles!!!
Needless to say, I turned this dangerous POS off.
Navigation = mostly good / a little late on updating map for upcoming turns / search results sometimes based on IP address of SIM card and not GPS/cell tower positioning
Energy Estimation for Trip = Excellent
Trip Planning = horrendous / 0min stops, laggy, return to previous charger directions at 50+ miles into that leg of the journey, 5min stops (just spend a bit longer at the charger you are at, getting off the freeway the next time will take more time than that)
beeeerock
Active Member
I find this very odd! In my experience, the graph you're referring to is the most (perhaps 'only') reliable part of the system. It does nutty things if I drive the route *I* want to drive (rather than what it has decided is best!), because the distances, elevation changes are entirely different. But once it figures out what I'm doing (not always quickly...) the predicted SOC is incredibly accurate for me... IF I drive as per my defined speed (settings, adjustment from posted limit) smoothly (cruise!).
I have noticed, perhaps since the last firmware update, that the bumps in the graph don't always show up where they should. Or should I say, the elevation data seems to be a little less accurate than before and is often a little offset from actual. However, the predicted charge level is generally good to within a percentage point of actual. And it adjusts up and down dynamically, depending on how I'm driving... if I hit a long stretch of construction, with reduced speed, the SOC prediction will jump a point or so. If I decide I'm running late and speed up, it drops.
I wonder what it is about your particular car and environment that have made it so unreliable for you, because of all the GPS functionality, this has been the part that sucks the least for me!
BoerumHill
not great not terrible
Seems like the thread title should be "Car & Driver also hates the Trip Planner."
I can't believe people try to defend the range anxiety increaser, or read that article and think it's a hit piece.
I can't believe people try to defend the range anxiety increaser, or read that article and think it's a hit piece.
beeeerock
Active Member
A relatively minor bug in the system that really annoys me...
When you start typing in a destination, a drop-down list of possible matches appear. If I select one, it does the calculations for that destination, but the entry box shows only the letters I typed, not the full text of the destination I selected from the drop-down list. That seems like an obvious fail with a trivial fix!
When you start typing in a destination, a drop-down list of possible matches appear. If I select one, it does the calculations for that destination, but the entry box shows only the letters I typed, not the full text of the destination I selected from the drop-down list. That seems like an obvious fail with a trivial fix!
Drucifer
Active Member
My understanding is that it was a mole from GM.
More seriously, I do think that Tesla needs to completely rethink their approach to software, especially their quality standards. IMHO, they should be aiming at excellence, not just token placeholders. Good software is not easy, but it's not that hard to do, however it does require a real management commitment and designers with real vision. Unfortunately, Tesla clearly doesn't have anything like that in their software operation, e.g. the media player, navigation system, trip planner, browser, the whole UI paradigm, the remote control app, and on and on.
Compared to apple software there are some quality issues. But barring navigation planning the system has been mostly stable and working well for me since we got the car.
It it is light years ahead of anything offered by Bmw or Audi at this point. They need to step up to the challenge of delivering even better quality in the future.
It it is light years ahead of anything offered by Bmw or Audi at this point. They need to step up to the challenge of delivering even better quality in the future.
If you had bothered to spend about three minutes on reading that blog you would have seen that it was the trip from Car & Driver's HQ to their Lightning Lap track test at the Virginia International Raceway - a trip that was also taken by many other cars in their fleet. Readers don't want car magazines to be all nice about the cars they are testing. The Model S is getting the same treatment as any other car. Car & Driver has no reason to go out of their way to make things easy for the Tesla.
Mayhemm
Model S P85+ "Lola"
As I mentioned, it's likely my experience is very rare (if not unique) in the Model S community. Perhaps Tesla does not have elevation data for the area in which I'm driving, resulting in an abnormally high amount of variance in the range prediction? Regardless, the car does nothing to indicate such a deficiency so, as implemented, all it does it make me more stressed than I had been before.
perkiset
... this one goes to 11
Yeah man - as a guy expecting his delivered in the next day or so, and taking his first road trip (only 350 miles one way) this weekend, I'd LOVE that. A best practices and "What I've found out..." kind of thing. Awesome, if you know of one.
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Whoops - sorry guys, I thought I was replying to a post back on page 2. I was responding to the notion of a book/pamphlet/PDF on how best to stop being a n00b as quickly as possible, rather than the way the C&D article author did it.
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Whoops - sorry guys, I thought I was replying to a post back on page 2. I was responding to the notion of a book/pamphlet/PDF on how best to stop being a n00b as quickly as possible, rather than the way the C&D article author did it.
Gizmotoy
Active Member
I'd venture to say that most people find the point-to-point navigation to be adequate: not perfect, but as good as or better than what's in other vehicles. It's primarily the road trip routing through Superchargers that's currently quite bad. For now, the best thing you can do is remove charging from your route and do it manually by entering the next Supercharger as your destination. You lose the view of the overall trip, but at least you won't be driving 60 miles out of the way to hit a Supercharger you didn't need to hit.
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