Firmware 6.2 - Navigation for non tech package?

[Doug Gallarda]

Hmm. Any idea what the sound system has to do with the Nav? IIRC, the tech package and premium sound were always two separate options.

You're correct. There are cars with premium sound, but no tech package. The MCU in cars with premium sound just happens to be Nav-ready even in cars without the Tech package. Only a software install is needed to enable Nav on these cars.

Cars with standard sound, however, don't come with a Nav-ready MCU so a new MCU must be installed first.

 

[Zarwin]

You're correct. There are cars with premium sound, but no tech package. The MCU in cars with premium sound just happens to be Nav-ready even in cars without the Tech package. Only a software install is needed to enable Nav on these cars.

Cars with standard sound, however, don't come with a Nav-ready MCU so a new MCU must be installed first.

I thought the only difference between the two was the size of the flash card. Non-tech/non-sound have a 16GB SD flash and all the rest have a 32GB SD flash. Seems it must be more than just the SD flash card else there should be the option to upgrade just the flash I would think.

 

[FredTMC]

Hmm. Any idea what the sound system has to do with the Nav? IIRC, the tech package and premium sound were always two separate options.

A few owners have said that non tech package cars without premium sound require a swap out of the center screen (MCU). Apparently the MCU doesn't have enough computer memory... Something like that.

Hopefully a cheaper solution can be reached for these orphaned cars. $6k is cost prohibitive.

 

[apacheguy]

Ah, that makes sense. But $6000 to upgrade the darn flash memory seems super steep. Should be a fraction of that cost including labor.

 

[Hometheatremaven]

Someone suggested they program the NAV so we could plug a flash drive into one of the USB ports and utilize it for the extra storage. Don't know how feasible that idea is, but it sure would be cheap!

 

[fluxemag]

At the risk of getting flamed, what would have been the price differential to add those options to the new vehicle when purchased? And what would be the added resale value for a car with the $14.5k in upgrades?

It's a tough situation for Tesla. There is a very real cost difference between a true 40kWh battery pack and a 60. And yes I know they installed a software crippled 60 because there were few enough 40s ordered that the additional engineering to create the 40 didn't warrant the expenditure. But they wanted to be fair to folks who had ordered a 40 at the reduced price while also being fair to folks who ordered the 60 at the higher price. I guess they could have simply said that they can't provide a 40 because of the small number of orders. But they didn't do that and I give them credit for it.

Similarly developing NAV has a development cost. And supercharging has both an incremental and development cost. Those cost need to be recovered from the people who use the product.

I think they're doing the best that they can to treat everybody fairly: the people who paid the higher price originally, the people who are looking to get into a Tesla at a lower cost, and those who bought at lower cost but are hoping for an upgrade path. At least there is an upgrade path. That's not true of many vehicles.

Don't get me wrong, I love my car and am happy they didn't just cancel the order. The cost to upgrade at time of purchase was $12k, and we were all given multiple opportunities to do so. I just feel the battery upgrade price should decrease with time, not increase. Either way, it doesn't matter to me because I don't need any of those upgrades. It would be nice, just not $13.5k nice. Simply from a resale value perspective that's a huge loser. The extra $1k for navigation is not a reasonable price on its own for that software package (I happily just paid Microsoft and Intuit $500 combined for Office, Turbotax and Quickbooks). These are all trivial complaints considering the free updates have been nice improvements.

 

[jvonbokel]

The extra $1k for navigation is not a reasonable price on its own for that software package (I happily just paid Microsoft and Intuit $500 combined for Office, Turbotax and Quickbooks). These are all trivial complaints considering the free updates have been nice improvements.

That's a good point. Even Navigon's own Android app (which includes offline maps, downloaded via WiFi) is only $50. Previously, I would've understood a bit of overcharging so as to discourage anybody from ordering sans-Tech and then getting the Nav upgrade separately, but now that it's standard, it seems there's little reason to charge so much for it anymore.

For me personally, at $500 or less, I'd probably buy it, and anywhere between $500 and $1k would be tougher to justify. At $1k or above, I can't see myself buying it.

 

[FredTMC]

Someone suggested they program the NAV so we could plug a flash drive into one of the USB ports and utilize it for the extra storage. Don't know how feasible that idea is, but it sure would be cheap!

yeah. Neat idea. Worse case scenario would be that tesla says the existing MCU can't be improved with extra memory and an entire replacement is the only option

 

[gregincal]

I have to say that I am a bit bummed that "Non tech" packages cannot even use a "limited" navigation for charging purposes on trips. I don't really understand how the "entire" fleet benefited with this release as well except for more chargers showing on my map.

The release notes certainly seem to imply that Range Assurance works across the entire fleet, even if you don't have Nav. Only Trip Planner requires nav.

 

[MassModel3]

I think they're doing the best that they can to treat everybody fairly: the people who paid the higher price originally, the people who are looking to get into a Tesla at a lower cost, and those who bought at lower cost but are hoping for an upgrade path. At least there is an upgrade path. That's not true of many vehicles.

I completely agree, and in no way blame Tesla for trying to please everybody and not make folks feel cheated...

Previously, I would've understood a bit of overcharging so as to discourage anybody from ordering sans-Tech and then getting the Nav upgrade separately, but now that it's standard, it seems there's little reason to charge so much for it anymore.

...but I have to completely agree with this, too. Now that it's included in the new models, Tesla is pretty much acknowledging that it's a necessity if the new Range Assurance and Trip Prediction features are to be meaningful. And as such, making Nav relatively affordable to those of us who don't yet have it seems reasonable, too.

 

[Zarwin]

The release notes certainly seem to imply that Range Assurance works across the entire fleet, even if you don't have Nav. Only Trip Planner requires nav.

From what I understand, range assurance is just a pop-up to tell you that you are about to go out of range of the nearest charging location, nothing more. On non-tech/nav you would have only the pop-up, nothing else, and it would be as the crow flies, not as the road lies, so possibly warning you after it is too late, I'd guess??

It's a feature you should never see actually.

 

[arijaycomet]

Had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine today who works in IT. He was asking about the wife's car that we recently picked up, since I mentioned it didn't have Nav. He asked if the display was still there, so when I stopped at his house I gave him a view of the Google maps view, and we chatting a bit about the lack of nav but the presence of Google.

Immediately he said "why not just offer Google's own turn-by-turn?" ... to which I mentioned that I thought I had heard such a rumor in a future OS update. Indeed, it seems like the presence of 3G data and existing Google mapping would make going to Google's own turn-by-turn the most logical step. We talked about the short comings however -- as he uses his phone to navigate and does a lot of travel for work, and has found himself in data-free areas that prevent his mapping/nav on his phone from working ideally.

It seems to me like Tesla is going to be reluctant to roll out 3G-based mapping data, because in those areas where data connections are limited, it would cause owners to potentially be lost and cause the navigation quality to be poor. Tesla is very motivated to provide high levels of customer satisfaction it seems, so I'd never peg them as willing to risk a poor review from a customer because they opted to bake in an option that was setup for potential disaster. Instead I think our option of using the ProClip dash mount for my wife, and her iPhone 6+ with nav there will work just fine (it also gives us options beyond Apple Maps, such as Google and Waze, which should prove very nice).

But if there does become a cost effective way to add OEM turn-by-turn to her 2014 60 non-tech, we'd be all ears for sure...

 

[jvonbokel]

Immediately he said "why not just offer Google's own turn-by-turn?" ... to which I mentioned that I thought I had heard such a rumor in a future OS update. Indeed, it seems like the presence of 3G data and existing Google mapping would make going to Google's own turn-by-turn the most logical step. We talked about the short comings however -- as he uses his phone to navigate and does a lot of travel for work, and has found himself in data-free areas that prevent his mapping/nav on his phone from working ideally.

It seems to me like Tesla is going to be reluctant to roll out 3G-based mapping data, because in those areas where data connections are limited, it would cause owners to potentially be lost and cause the navigation quality to be poor. Tesla is very motivated to provide high levels of customer satisfaction it seems, so I'd never peg them as willing to risk a poor review from a customer because they opted to bake in an option that was setup for potential disaster.

As of two years ago, Elon stated that they would eventually enable Google Maps Navigation (see my earlier post here), but I'm starting to think they have since decided it would be easier/better to make Navigon Navigation standard instead.

 

[markb1]

As of two years ago, Elon stated that they would eventually enable Google Maps Navigation (see my earlier post here), but I'm starting to think they have since decided it would be easier/better to make Navigon Navigation standard instead.

They're just working on Tesla time.

 

[jvonbokel]

They're just working on Tesla time.

Ha! If he'd specified a time frame, I'd say this is more than Tesla time, but even then he said it was pretty low on the priority list. If it were still on the list at all, he'd likely have teased it for 7.0.

 

[ged]

As a 40 owner with the Tech Package who just got the update today, I can confirm that Supercharging and Nav must both be enabled for Trip Planner to do it's thing. I don't have SC, so trip planner does not route through any chargers when I tell it to plot a long trip (one I took before and charged along the way).

 

[Hometheatremaven]

6.2 2.4.136 now installed on my non-tech S.
I thought us non-techies would be the LAST to get it since we get such little benefit.
Valet Mode is nice but Range Assurance is useless w/o NAV because it figures as the crow flies.
With this update, I feel like a kid who's getting his brother's hand-me-downs.

 

[jvonbokel]

As a 40 owner with the Tech Package who just got the update today, I can confirm that Supercharging and Nav must both be enabled for Trip Planner to do it's thing. I don't have SC, so trip planner does not route through any chargers when I tell it to plot a long trip (one I took before and charged along the way).

I hadn't thought about that... but I guess it makes sense. You really have no need to plot a route through a network of chargers that you don't have access to. It'd still be nice if it at least let you route through "destination" chargers (HPWCs).

 

[golfski]

6.2 2.4.136 now installed on my non-tech S.
I thought us non-techies would be the LAST to get it since we get such little benefit.
Valet Mode is nice but Range Assurance is useless w/o NAV because it figures as the crow flies.
With this update, I feel like a kid who's getting his brother's hand-me-downs.

I agree that the new Range Assurance feature is useless and does nothing for our anxiety (which I don't have anyways) since its just not going to be accurate if its as the crow flies. In the places that the range is impacted the most (mountains, etc..) that is when the crow-fly calculation is at its worse.

However, when I think of it, these features of non-tech vs. tech that center around navigation are all we are really missing out on. Since the last few updates have been focused on Autopilot and Navigation, us pre-AP non-tech owners have not been getting much in the way of updates, so it feels as though we miss out a little. However, the same reason I skipped tech in the first place, the fact that I know where I am going and how to get there 99% of the time settles in after each update and get over the lack of navigation quickly. While it would be cool to see these new features, I would rarely use them - which is why I skipped tech in the first place.

Now, if they could focus on more functionality of the car (email, browser, UI, customize-ability, etc..) that should apply to all cars, everyone wins with those. I think Navigation and AP updates are a short term focus as it was seriously lacking and a major complaint of most owners.

 

[Hometheatremaven]

Now, if they could focus on more functionality of the car (email, browser, UI, customize-ability, etc..) that should apply to all cars, everyone wins with those.

I agree. Wouldn't it be nice to have WAZE on the center screen?