GPS location drifts off road

[mjnichol]

My car is currently in service for this. Curious if this is happening to others, and how frequently?

For me, multiple times per week, my location would drift far enough off the road I was on that the navigation system thought I was on either a parallel or perpendicular road to the one I was actually on, and would recompute my route. Of course, the worst consequence was being on the interstate with NOA and the car thinking I was on a parallel city street... and dropping my speed from 65 to 40.

 

[DCGOO]

My car is currently in service for this. Curious if this is happening to others, and how frequently?

For me, multiple times per week, my location would drift far enough off the road I was on that the navigation system thought I was on either a parallel or perpendicular road to the one I was actually on, and would recompute my route. Of course, the worst consequence was being on the interstate with NOA and the car thinking I was on a parallel city street... and dropping my speed from 65 to 40.

Does this ALWAYS happen, to the point of TACC, w or without auto-steer being unusable? Does it happen at the same location all the time? Does it work ok anywhere else?

The maps used for navigation are not the same google based maps displayed on the big screen and not updated all that frequently. This often happens with new or recently (within the last few years) changed roads. In some cases you can not even operate TACC at all. Unless there is something physically wrong with your GPS (unlikely, if it works at all), I would be surprised if service will be able to help you. Expect a report back that says they are unable to duplicate the problem.

For years there was a new section of the beltway around Louisville, that was not in the nav map database. When driving on it, I simply had to disable all driving automation on that section of the highway, ignore all the speed warnings, and drive manually, even though the road was displayed accurately on the Map display. It was finally corrected last year sometime.

 

[mjnichol]

I've seen issues where the map does not match the road and it's understandable that this causes problems. The issue in my case, appears different--it happens in a variety of places and on roads that have not changed in 10+ years.

Often what I see before this happens is that I have turned left or right on to a road and the car's displayed location gradually drifts further and further away from the road, as if the car thinks it's on a slightly different heading and is only using compass and speed to determine location. After some time (can be up to a minute), the car suddenly floats sideways back on to the road (seems like the GPS has finally corrected the car's location). This behavior makes me think it's a hardware issue. It may not be the GPS itself, but could be the gyro or compass? Just guessing as to the cause though. Hopefully they will replace the gyro board.

 

[BlueBonnet19]

How did this get resolved for you @mjnichol? My M3 just recently started to do this. Currently it thinks it is parked in the middle of a forest a town over.

 

[mjptech]

Same here, my X started doing this recently. Well, I take that back, it has done it off and on, but I never knew we until yesterday.

My HomeLink would fail to open every now and then, but yesterday, I zoomed in on the map and noticed it believed my X was about 50-100 feet off... It did the same today, and sure enough, my X was showing itself not even close to where it should be reporting.

I'm guessing this might be something I need to get addressed with the SC...

 

[3gmcintire3]

My 1 week old MX just did something similar yesterday. For about 10 minutes it just drifted away from the actual location, telling me to turn on those far off streets. It finally stopped completely showing us a town that was 500 miles away.

A soft reset did not help but when we locked it and went to lunch, it started working again

 

[mjnichol]

I've still been seeing the issue. They hoped that an upgrade to HW3 would help, but it has not. There was a particularly bad case in the past few days (gradually grew to be 1-2 miles off). I made 3 videos and sent them to my contact at Tesla.

Most of the time when I see the issue, it drifts off by about 50 feet, enough to sometimes think I'm on a different road near the one I'm actually on.

 

[ElectricSteve]

Reboot the mcu. If that does not fix it, have the GPS re-centered at a SC.

 

[ITGOESTO11]

started happening on my M3P. Many, many times during each trip. Anyone have this and was fixed by Tesla?

 

[kchau]

started happening on my M3P. Many, many times during each trip. Anyone have this and was fixed by Tesla?

3 has a separate issue than X - I'm not sure what the cause of the 3 is, you might want to search in the 3/Y forum

 

[kchau]

For everyone in this thread having GPS issues with the new X - do two things.

first - file an NHTSA complaint, see my post here:

Refresh Model X GPS Drifting WILDLY. AP, and nav is unusable.

Took my model x to service today for the gps issue. They told me it’s software issue. Not sure if that is correct. We will see tmr Hi, any update on this? Did they do anything? Thanks

teslamotorsclub.com

then, schedule service according to my post here:

Refresh Model X GPS Drifting WILDLY. AP, and nav is unusable.

Just got the service estimate from the SC - they're going straight to replacing the cabin camera. 👏

teslamotorsclub.com

all information is in the thread referenced above.