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Navigation Maps outside of cell service
- Thread starter postersw
- Start date
Bruce Person
Red Rover
We have. For me, it is not so much the maps themselves but when the maps show me places to stay and places to eat, and then display it on a map so I know exactly how to get there including their phone number which I can dial to my car connected smart phone then I have a very powerful tool for finding my way around our country. I'm a landscape photographer and the ability to do a google satellite view of an area that I've never been to before as well as see it in 3D allows me to see where shadows will be at certain times of day based of some guess work of how high the terrain is in an area and how dense the vegetation is. I just would like to have a better connected car. Even my 2019 ICE Honda Accord Touring has decent navigation maps with lodging and restaurants as well as other things to see in an area. I was just expecting Tesla to at least reach that level. I miss my Sirius XM satellite radio too. The Tesla sure is great in urban areas with good cell phone coverage. I spend most of my time on the Pacific coast so we have mountains that cause problems for cell signals.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.
For now. I'm imagining them integrating the phased array antenna in the hood of the car.
Bruce Person
Red Rover
Something like that sounds like it could be possible or to embed very fine grid wires into the all glass roof of the Y to form a download grid for satellite reception. It sure is a bunch of glass.
diamond.g
Active Member
I am sure this has been said before. Tesla’s do have navigation maps onboard, so routing will work even if you don’t have cell service. I believe on the S and X it will even show in dash (behind the steering wheel). Teslas center display doesn’t display that data, it is Google Maps based, so no connection, no map. Tesla should allow Google tiles to be cached on a route, but that likely would mean a change in terms that they have with Google currently.
Here WeGo has been my go-to offline navigation for nearly a decade. It allows you to quickly download maps by state, country or even entire continents. While I typically only download detailed maps for places I plan on travelling to, memory is so cheap that you could easily download maps for the entire world and store the data on a 32 GB MicroSD card. The app comes in very handy when traveling abroad without cell service. Also, it's always been totally free.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.maps
Planning on getting my first Tesla soon. For my Subaru Forester I use a Garmin GPS on the dash with pre-loaded maps of all of North America. It works even when I’m dozens of miles from cell service. Worked great in remote areas in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New York, and New Hampshire. I guess I’ll have to use a dash mounted GOS in my Tesla for when I’m in my favorite places.
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smatthew
Active Member
You can make it cache the satellite maps for a single trip. Enter the destination. Then start scrolling on the screen. Especially zoom in on the destination. The car holds onto the satellite images it downloads for the duration of the trip.
Being able to select an area and say "Download maps and POI's" would be VERY useful.
The car also has a satellite base map downloaded. If it doesn't show up, zoom out on the Tesla display. It's not high res, but it's better than nothing.
smatthew
Active Member
When you have connectivity, run searches for everywhere you might want to go. Then they're stored in your recent navigation list and can be accessed without cellular connectivity. The car has a full road map onboard and can route to any destination without internet, you just need to know the actual street address if the car isn't online to look it up.
It's a hack, and we deserve better, but it works.....
The problem for Tesla is that they are running out of space to store stuff on the car's computer. They're mentioned this in regards to the space the games take up. (I personally would love to be able to say "Ok, I need offline maps. Delete game Y for now")
Tesla is undoubtedly hesitant to store anything critical on a user provided USB drive. It could open up an attack vector since the car would be accessing files that the user can modify externally.
Blucenturion
Member
If you think THIS is annoying, wait till you get a message saying you don't have charge sufficient to reach destination, and you're out of coverage to boot.
Bruce Person
Red Rover
Sounds like we are getting into a "New Feature Request" zone. I am not going to travel the entire country in one trip. When I go to my AAA office for maps I ask by the state and sometimes by region. For me, I would be happy with "Western US" or for now, California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Later I'd want Nevada, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. But when I had a good internet connection I could then download as I go and delete ones that I didn't need at the moment. Nobody has all the storage they need all the time.....
My little portable Garmin GPS has all I need, of USA in memory. Good for spontaneity. (If we can ever travel again )
But I don't know if or where a portable can go on top of the dashboard because of the airbags.
smatthew
Active Member
Oh yeah. An offline feature would either have to let you draw a geobox, or just specify states/regions.
Here's the thing. When you enter an address, Tesla knows if your route is going to take you outside of cell service. Heck, Tesla probably has the most up-to-date map of AT&T cellular coverage out there! If my starting point and destination both have cellular service, just download maps for areas without cellular service. If destination doesn't have cellular service, offer to download offline maps and POI along the route.
Bruce Person
Red Rover
Around here in my local area, Verizon is king. No one I know has AT&T. But many lower priced cars like my Honda Accord Touring with using low res screens, have no problem with their low res maps anywhere I've gone even with no cell or satellite coverage (against a mountainside). So it looks to me like a data storage issue. Too bad we can't just supply an SSD drive that only Tesla manages or even better just let us buy it from the Tesla shop and that way it could come preloaded by region with all the maps installed and let us choose how large an SSD we'd like to buy depending upon how many regions a single SSD would support. Just throwing some ideas around.
smatthew
Active Member
Oh, I completely wish that Tesla was doing something like the Skyroam Solis. It's a global hotspot that uses virtual SIM card to connect to whatever service provider is available (that they have contracts with, of course) So not only does it use the AT&T network, but it also uses Verizon, T-mobile, US Cellular, and all the little cellular providers that you never cared about until you were in their territory. That would make the car have much greater connectivity.
Also, the car's computer does have a USB port that could have a flash device attached to it. The car could "own" the device, and install an encrypted filesystem for the Tesla ecosystem to safely use for offline storage. As long as the system can handle the eventual device corruption and/or disconnects.... I feel that if Tesla ever wanted us to use that USB port, they would come up with a cable that routed it to the glovebox. USB devices die often enough. Nobody wants to have to tear their dash apart to unplug and replug a usb device ;-}
Also, the car's computer does have a USB port that could have a flash device attached to it. The car could "own" the device, and install an encrypted filesystem for the Tesla ecosystem to safely use for offline storage. As long as the system can handle the eventual device corruption and/or disconnects.... I feel that if Tesla ever wanted us to use that USB port, they would come up with a cable that routed it to the glovebox. USB devices die often enough. Nobody wants to have to tear their dash apart to unplug and replug a usb device ;-}
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Bruce Person
Red Rover
I have the Model Y and I've ordered a Jeda hub that has a hidden compartment just big enough for the Samsung T3 1/2 Terabyte SSD drive for my Dashcam and Sentry mode that fits just below the dual phone chargers. It adds powered USB ports so we already should have the potential "owned" drive capability. I bought an unlocked Samsung S8+ phone that I put in a Version sim card that is from Tracfone and it seems to be able to handle multiple carriers (it is a tracfone). It only costs about $120 a year (not a month) and is all the phone I need. I'm just looking for Tesla to allow me to purchase preloaded maps in some manner and them let me plug them into the USB ports for the Tesla to read the Google maps (or subscribe to once a year service for new maps, destinations, lodging, and restaurants).
To the best of my knowledge Google licensing doesn't allow third party companies to cache the maps that are displayed.
Bruce Person
Red Rover
What you are saying actually answers a bunch of questions. If Tesla can't redistribute Google maps, they wouldn't be able to keep a live cache to do online updates except through the internet. Maybe on some sort of google subscription service they could remarket static periodic maps. In rural areas, expecting constant internet and/or cell coverage is just not practical. Even music needs to be cached or stored for those times you are not able to connect. 100% connection is still a pipe dream for dense forests and mountains that block a signal. Maybe someday, but in the meantime, some sort of map distribution seems like a good solution.
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