Navigation Maps outside of cell service

[drtimhill]

I think Tesla needs a cache feature. Perhaps if you navigate to a destination with or without cell service maps should cache the whole route regardless. I thought this was common in most apps nowadays.

Are we all sure it doesn’t do that already? When I did my test, the car continued navigating the route for over 10 mins through a blind spot where it had no cell coverage (though the google satellite images gradually scrolled off the screen leaving only bare roads). This does suggest some amount of caching (which in any case all nav apps must do SOME of).

Perhaps the OP was referring to attempting to enter a route when he had no cell coverage?

 

[Silicon Desert]

Maybe these cars should carry a warning: "Caution - do not take out of cell-phone range".

And to think I drove all across the country in 1970 with paper maps on the dash and no cell phones (stop at pay phone) and no driving issues. Actually, never considered it a problem. I guess we have become spoiled with technology.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Maybe this is why we haven’t seen the coast to coast FSD demo... middle of the USA might have some dead spots at key areas where FSD needs to switch freeways or something...

No problem...… HBO and GPS all over the USA

 

[SteveD]

Time for Elon to launch some rockets from SpaceX to improve cell phone range.

 

[PhantmMenace]

Are we all sure it doesn’t do that already? When I did my test, the car continued navigating the route for over 10 mins through a blind spot where it had no cell coverage (though the google satellite images gradually scrolled off the screen leaving only bare roads). This does suggest some amount of caching (which in any case all nav apps must do SOME of).

Perhaps the OP was referring to attempting to enter a route when he had no cell coverage?

Yep, perhaps you are right. I have yet to navigate when outside of cell service but this is good information either way !

 

[joebruin77]

Perhaps the OP was referring to attempting to enter a route when he had no cell coverage?

This happened to me whle driving along Highway 1 from San Luis Obispo, CA to Big Sur, CA. I had already entered the route on my navigation. Interestingly, when I looked at the route the Tesla had picked out, I was surprised to see that it was taking me off of Highway 1 and back to the east to the 101 freeway. I could not understand why it would do this since the most direct route would be to continue north on Highway 1. Sure enough, as soon as I got north of Cambria, the navigation went "cafluey".

Maybe it depends on the size of the area without cell coverage. Maybe a small area of a couple square miles is ok, but larger areas such as this route may be problematic.

 

[Bruce Person]

I also thought that the basic road-only view (without the satellite view) would work outside of cell-phone service range - but it doesn't. My road-only display shows nothing, and gives utterly ridiculous navigation instructions. So, I guess there should be a warning label on the dashboard that says:"When out of cell-phone range, don't get lost, and don't get a flat".
Seriously, I think that in this day and age, with such a 'technically advanced' car, its utterly flabbergasting that the navigation totally fails when you are outside of cell range (Even google maps allows me to cache a route on my phone).

I took delivery of my new Model Y Performance just at the end of June. I live on the coast of California, north of San Francisco just a bit less than 200 miles. Yesterday I drove from Fort Bragg (CA) to the small town of Elk CA (also on the coast) and just south of Mendocino my Google view disappeared so I switch to the road only type of map and got a blank screen (with some faint type of grid). Is this what I can expect from my 80k (full price inc. Sales Tax) car? I also own a 2019 Honda Accord Touring and my Nav map has never disappeared anywhere I drive on the Pacific coast. I'm a landscape photographer and so I'm often away from Cell phone coverage and WiFi coverage. Is this a limitation of all Teslas? Shouldn't there be a warning to only use Teslas in urban and somewhat urban areas that have cell coverage. For me this is a serious flaw. Please Tesla - look at how the much cheaper Gas cars handle Nav when out of cell coverage and add this feature in a software update if possible.

 

[Bruce Person]

No problem...… HBO and GPS all over the USA

It is not just the middle of the country that has dead spots for cell coverage, but many places are dead spots. Just 200 miles from the Fremont factory along the Mendocino coast try going south of Mendocino about 10 miles and head south and your detailed maps will disappear. The fudged map is so like an early computer game (no color, no details like road number, really nothing helpful) that most ICE Nav systems put it to shame. Tesla at least should have detailed Garmin type maps of the whole country already downloaded that can be upgraded once a year with their premium subscription for these dead areas. Also no streaming, spotify, or anything else that requires a cell signal. Just my Y opinion.

 

[jeffnz]

Maybe it has to do with GPS reception not cell? Anyway, I live in NZ and over the last few weekends have driven a lot in areas with no cell coverage and saw no degradation of the maps. I couldn’t search for a place but could actively navigate to a pin drop or run with out navigating and it tracked me ok. Maybe we have different version with offline maps in the car?

 

[Bruce Person]

Maybe it has to do with GPS reception not cell? Anyway, I live in NZ and over the last few weekends have driven a lot in areas with no cell coverage and saw no degradation of the maps. I couldn’t search for a place but could actively navigate to a pin drop or run with out navigating and it tracked me ok. Maybe we have different version with offline maps in the car?

I'm sure our maps are different. New Zealand is way smaller than the US in area so it would make sense that the images are more dense than the "out of cell areas" in the US. This is not a positioning problem because my phone can still find my location in Google maps using my phone. My 2019 Honda Accord Touring Hybrid also has not problem with this same location. It does have a satellite antenna but I thought that was just for the Sirius XM radio but maybe the Honda might also use it to download their lower res map images. I'd be fine if Tesla didn't do any worse than what a Honda Accord Touring Hybrid which is 1/2 the price of my Tesla. Anyway, I was looking forward to using the Tesla for my photography trips which are mostly in out of the way areas. Oh well.

 

[BLW2]

hmmm, interesting.

I usually try to remember to download offline maps on my android phone whenever I go on trips. Just yesterday returning home from the Tampa are and driving through central FL I had forgotten to do that. Still, there were some rather large holes when my family had no cell coverage but my phone was still navigating. It was significantly long periods of time, so much so that my wife asked how it was that my phone was still navigating.
I can only assume that google is downloading the route when I first started the trip navigation.
I would not likely had any off route info since I had not downloaded offline maps, but it seems like the route itself was just fine.

Incidentally, this trip originated at Tesla in Tampa, where I took my family on a model Y test drive

 

[Bruce Person]

hmmm, interesting.

I usually try to remember to download offline maps on my android phone whenever I go on trips. Just yesterday returning home from the Tampa are and driving through central FL I had forgotten to do that. Still, there were some rather large holes when my family had no cell coverage but my phone was still navigating. It was significantly long periods of time, so much so that my wife asked how it was that my phone was still navigating.
I can only assume that google is downloading the route when I first started the trip navigation.
I would not likely had any off route info since I had not downloaded offline maps, but it seems like the route itself was just fine.

Incidentally, this trip originated at Tesla in Tampa, where I took my family on a model Y test drive

Since it seems that I too will have to rely on my phone and not my 80k Tesla for navigating, you said that "my phone was still navigating". What phone app were you using or were you just using Google Maps? I haven't had to do this phone navigating with my Honda Accord so I'm not used to navigating with my phone.

 

[BLW2]

yep, just plain old google maps
like I said I normally dive into setting and do an offline maps download.... but sometimes I forget.
The key seems to be starting the trip with a data connection

 

[BLW2]

that said, can google maps be run on the onboard browser in these cars? I wonder how it would act in the no signal areas.....

 

[Bruce Person]

that said, can google maps be run on the onboard browser in these cars? I wonder how it would act in the no signal areas.....

When I get a chance, I'll drive down to Elk CA from Fort Bragg CA and I'll put up Google Maps and then I'll see. Last time I went down there I ran into something like poison oak (it wasn't - it was something I'd never experienced before but spreads really easily) so I'll be more careful next time. I caught it trying to clear away the brush from a charger.

 

[Steveh8]

Same issue here, currently in Wales in the Brecon Beacons, very little cell coverage and we can't get basic navigation searching. Really should download and cache the local area on the car (or provide it as an option).

 

[drtimhill]

that said, can google maps be run on the onboard browser in these cars? I wonder how it would act in the no signal areas.....

Guys, Google maps (and Apple Maps for that matter) will suffer the same problems. They all rely on downloading map data on demand, and will fail when there is no connectivity. If you REALLY want a fallback, you need to get something like Sygic or a similar "traditional" GPS nav app that uses maps stored locally on your phone.

(And yes, you can do some offline maps downloads with Google, but you have to do this bit by bit and remember to do so before each trip. Apps like Sygic are not as smart as Google but at least you know you have all the map data already downloaded and ready to use.)

 

[Steveh8]

But with google maps we can cache the local tiles (or tiles that you are travelling to), this is not currently possible on the Tesla.

 

[drtimhill]

But with google maps we can cache the local tiles (or tiles that you are travelling to), this is not currently possible on the Tesla.

I'm sure Tesla's long-term plans are to add Starlink to the cars and dump the cell connection entirely, rather than tinker with local storage. For that matter, if you DO have cell coverage on your phone, you can always let the car connect to it as a hotspot via WiFi.

 

[Knightshade]

I'm sure Tesla's long-term plans are to add Starlink to the cars and dump the cell connection entirely, rather than tinker with local storage. .

Dunno why people keep thinking this.

The starlink receiver is the size of a medium pizza box so both size and aerodyamics work against this pretty hard...and IIRC Elon himself on I think the Q4 2019 investor call largely dismissed the idea saying it didn't make much sense to do and he wasn't really considering it- that starlink was intended for high bandwidth low latency connectivity for homes/businesses and maybe aircraft and boats.