Driving in reverse makes GPS position wrong

[ai4px]

When we backup, the map flips 180 degrees, as if the car doesn't know it's in reverse. All distances are correct though. Heck , even my honda civic knows when I'm backing up not to flip the map!

 

[.jg.]

Well, that is interesting. In my car the icon moves immediately. Sounds like the dead reckoning is not working correctly.

That's what I was thinking.

Is there a tunnel you can drive through to kill the GPS signal and see if the icon stops moving?

I'm not sure about a tunnel but I can probably find an underground car park.

By the way, the homelink is extremely unreliable when backing up to a garage since the transmitter is in front.

Yes - I have discovered this. I also found that the "Auto-open when arriving" function doesn't work while the car is reversing - only when it is in Drive.

 

[Jason]

Both our cars do this too - I first noticed when I visited a friend with really long narrow drive and with backup camera I just backed up and then map was off. Thought it was just that Tesla, but did it on my wife's car too.

 

[MichaelS]

Both our cars do this too - I first noticed when I visited a friend with really long narrow drive and with backup camera I just backed up and then map was off. Thought it was just that Tesla, but did it on my wife's car too.

That is exactly what happened to me in Oregon when my wife and I were looking at houses. Had to back out of 1000 foot driveway and the navigation system was useless afterwards. Only because of my wife's excellent directional skills we managed to find our way out.

Please Please Please contact Executive Escalation and report this. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Thanks.

 

[MichaelS]

I just had a thought. If anyone has a twitter account and can tweet Elon Musk, maybe he will intervene and light a fire under someone.

 

[Peter_M]

I tried again today. While backing up about 100 m to the southeast, the car icon mostly followed my position but in jumps and it wasn't exactly right. When I was done backing up, the icon was about 20 yards to my northeast and pointing northeast even though the car was pointing northwest. When I turned and started driving southwest, the icon moved northeast! Maybe it had no GPS fix yet, but it thought I was pointing northeast and I was driving, so it moved the icon that way. Then after a minute or two of driving, it snapped back to my actual position and direction. So it's still not right, but it seemed to correct faster than previous times. I've got firmware 2018.24.1 12dd099.

 

[cryptyk]

I park every night in a garage three stories underground. No gps or cell signal. When I back up in the morning, the icon moves backyards, even when turning. The dead rehomingr keeps my orientation and position almost perfectly as I ascend in a spiral out of the garage.

Once every week, the car refuses to pick up GPS once I'm at the surface, resulting in my position being off by miles by the time I get to work, but I think that's a different problem.

 

[MichaelS]

Yes, that's the way it is supposed to work.
Your post gave me an idea. I'm going to find a parking garage and back up in it. If the dead reckonning works in reverse then somehow the GPS must be interfering.

I park every night in a garage three stories underground. No gps or cell signal. When I back up in the morning, the icon moves backyards, even when turning. The dead rehomingr keeps my orientation and position almost perfectly as I ascend in a spiral out of the garage.

Once every week, the car refuses to pick up GPS once I'm at the surface, resulting in my position being off by miles by the time I get to work, but I think that's a different problem.

 

[ElectricAvenue]

Same problem here when backing up and GPS gets off track for about 10 mins.
Model S 2013
Noticed the problem about a year after purchase.
Waiting patiently for a fix.

 

[N4HHE]

Did not have this problem when my Model S was new in December 2013 started about a year later. If I back into my driveway, about 50’, the Tesla app location shows my car across the street and 100’ north solidly in my neighbors driveway. But if I drive straight in my driveway then it is shown correctly.

Until seeing this thread I figured some over-zealous too smart for his own britches programmer decided all cars always park nose first and therefore if pointed west then it must be in the driveway in the west side of road. And that someone spent too much time identifying driveways. My car is always shown in a driveway, that can not be by accident.

To make things even harder to understand it misses the driveway 20’ south to select the one 100’ north.

 

[ken830]

More people need to complain before this gets fixed. It's obvious that they are not working on it. They've had years of time now.

 

[zdre]

I have complained to Tesla about this for over two years. The bug was introduced in 2016 with one of the firmware updates. I have escalated probably 6 months ago, but it is still not fixed. My Model3 has almost the same issue, but it corrects itself much faster.
For anyone who's arrow turns around when you go backwards, Tesla may have disabled your gyroscope to mask this issue. This means that your location will not update at all if you are in a garage or tunnel without GPS signal. Newer (autopilot-equipped) Model S/X cars seem to have different logic though.

 

[clea]

I have complained to Tesla about this for over two years. The bug was introduced in 2016 with one of the firmware updates. I have escalated probably 6 months ago, but it is still not fixed. My Model3 has almost the same issue, but it corrects itself much faster.
For anyone who's arrow turns around when you go backwards, Tesla may have disabled your gyroscope to mask this issue. This means that your location will not update at all if you are in a garage or tunnel without GPS signal. Newer (autopilot-equipped) Model S/X cars seem to have different logic though.

I have also complained about this issue since 2016 ... i have given up hope that the programmers understand the simple concept that driving in reverse means that the car's movement represents a negative vector in relation to its gps position ...

 

[MichaelS]

Hey everyone. I'm not getting my hopes up yet. But I just got an update that SEEMS to fix the problem. Let me do some more testing and I'll report back.
Of course if it is finally fixed, I wonder how long it will stay fixed when another version gets pushed.

 

[MichaelS]

As far as I can tell, the backup icon issue has been fixed.
Firmware 2018.34.b4cs2b9a
Same firmware that introduces the new PIN to start.

 

[clea]

I just did a quick test and the position seems to be updated properly now, however ... the functionality of having the garage automatically open based on your position is still broken if you back up to your garage ... all they did was stop updating the distance and so the proximity never reaches 0 ... still have to actually raise my arm and hit the icon to get it to open ;~) ... first world problem that seems to be low priority on their list of bugs to solve.

 

[.jg.]

I just did a quick test and the position seems to be updated properly now, however ... the functionality of having the garage automatically open based on your position is still broken if you back up to your garage ... all they did was stop updating the distance and so the proximity never reaches 0 ... still have to actually raise my arm and hit the icon to get it to open ;~) ... first world problem that seems to be low priority on their list of bugs to solve.

I back up to my garage and the Tesla will say something like "Auto open in 50 feet", all the way up to the garage, even though I set the garage position to be just in front of the garage. However, if I flick the car from Reverse into Drive, the car immediately invokes Auto Open and I then resume backing into the garage.