Navigation preferences

[richkae]

Recently the navigation system in my Model S had 2 route choices:
1) a longer distance with higher speed limit roads
2) a shorter distance with lower speed limit roads
The nav system chose route 1
It estimated the time as the same ( to the nearest minute ) even though route 2 was about 15% shorter.
Now, the actual time could easily have been less for route 1 ( because I don't know what the fractional minute was ) but it made me realize I was unhappy with the choice.

In the past I have never cared about any variable other than time. But now I do. I care about energy consumed.
It is true that in my past I would even take the slower route ( total time ) that was longer so I could drive fast.
Now - if the time is equal - I want the route that uses the least energy.

There are many times where the nav system should make this decision for me.
If I ask it to plan a route that is near the range limit of the car - clearly it should choose the fastest route that doesn't run the battery empty. In almost all cases that means shorter distance. In most cases it is shorter distance on slower roads. In some cases it may mean longer distance on slower roads.
If it can't find a route it should suggest that charging will be required ( it should include charging time and location, but that is a topic for another rant. ) it should know to suggest charging will be required.


Even without that case, in my normal driving I would be very happy to be able to switch the nav system into "Eco mode" where it factors energy into the choice. "Eco light" would weight time at 5 times more important than energy. That means I would accept a 5% longer drive to save 25% energy.
Back of the envelope, I believe driving ~15% slower over ~15% less distance is more than 25% energy savings.
"Eco important" would be 3:1, a 5% time penalty is acceptable to save 15% energy.
And "Eco insane" where they are 1:1

 

[jerry33]

Recently the navigation system in my Model S had 2 route choices:
1) a longer distance with higher speed limit roads
2) a shorter distance with lower speed limit roads
The nav system chose route 1
It estimated the time as the same ( to the nearest minute ) even though route 2 was about 15% shorter.
Now, the actual time could easily have been less for route 1 ( because I don't know what the fractional minute was ) but it made me realize I was unhappy with the choice.

My expectation is that these things will either get included with future upgrades or will be Apps when the APIs are released. The thing to do is make sure Tesla knows they are wanted. It takes much longer when they are not on the to-do list.

 

[Lloyd]

I had something wierd happen last night with the Nav System. I searched for a store in Santa Maria, CA and the address came up. I had the Nav system navigate to the store, and it gave me directions to a completely different location. I did not think too much of it and did another search at home to verify the system working properly. Everything was fine. The next time in santa Maria, I searched for a restaurant. I was driving on the same street, Stowell Road 1/4 mile west of 101, westbound. Again the correct address came up and I chose to navigate to it. Again it sent me about 4 miles in the wrong direction. It says it is navigating to the proper address, but points location about 4 miles off. Got out of Santa Maria and did another search and everything worked fine. I beleive there is a Google maps or GPS interference here preventing proper coordination of the Nav function. Navigation I choose to do in that location fails every time. Very reproducible.

 

[ElSupreme]

Lloyd I have the same problem with my home. When I search for it it shows perfectly (maybe 200-300 feet off) on the Google maps. But when it moves to the Navigon and my dash the destination changes to a different road in my neighborhood not quite a half mile away (obviously not a problem as I know where my home is). But it does move to an entirely new road, and after displaying the correct location on Google maps, and there is not warning that the destination was changed.

I know why this happens in my case. I live on a "Crossing" which is shortened (properly) to "Xing" not "Crssng". And tons of mapping software has problems with Crossing versus Xing and will only take one or the other. In fact Google maps until very recently would put 'Crossing' and 'Xing' about 200 yards apart in separate zip codes when you entered them. 'Xing' now shows up in the right place sometime in September it was fixed.

As for route selection I recently had that issue. It wasn't a big deal, and in fact took me the way I would have driven if I was in a gasoline car. I went driving up in the North Georgia Mountains, and my wife got bored and wanted to end the drive early. So we took a different valley home than I was planning on. But after looking at my route after I got back home I realized that crossing back to the valley I was planning on returning on would have been very easy, would have been about 20 miles shorter, and would have probably taken less time (roads weren't crowded, in the summer it would have taken longer), not to mention slower average speeds. Instead of driving 220 miles and having 25 to spare (I wasn't conserving on the way back as I knew I had plenty of range) when getting back, I could have driven about 200 miles and had 50-60 to spare, as I would have cut about 30 miles of 85+ interstate speed out of my trip.

So if you need to maximize your range I would plan a route, and not rely on the navigation And make sure to verify your destination not changing when you send something to the navigation, the Google maps screen updates with the new destination when I send it to navigation.

I sure hope there is someway to enter a route with waypoints in the future. It would make road trips that much easier.

 

[jbherman]

1. Perhaps the navigation system already does this and I've missed it, but it would be nice to have some "favorites" marked...especially "Home," or other commonly visited locations. In other words, "navigate 'Home'" would be a lot easier than searching through the navigation history.

2. I'd like to have the ability to set preferences for the street name font to be slightly larger. It stays the same size even when you magnify the map.

 

[Robert.Boston]

I sure hope there is someway to enter a route with waypoints in the future. It would make road trips that much easier.

I'll second that suggestion. I usually plan a route carefully at home. It would be great to export that route to the Model S.

 

[NigelM]

1. Perhaps the navigation system already does this and I've missed it, but it would be nice to have some "favorites" marked...especially "Home," or other commonly visited locations. In other words, "navigate 'Home'" would be a lot easier than searching through the navigation history.

Sounds good, but in practice I always use the voice command to say "Navigate to...[home address]". Seems to me just as fast and as easy.

 

[jbherman]

Maybe I just need to wait for an increased array of voice commands. As it currently stands, I can tell it to navigate to home, prompting a pop up window on the navigation screen that I then have to activate. I'd prefer to just say where I want to go and then tell it to start navigation without having to press the touch screen. Not a big deal...I'd just rather not have to take my eyes off the road. Or does it already have this capability? To my knowledge, there are currently very few functioning voice commands. There are so many possibilities! Similarly when I voice command a phone call to one of my contacts, I'd like to then be able to tell it which number to call (home, mobile, office, etc.) without having to manually touch the screen. I personally find it distracting. Still...it looks cool!

 

[woof]

I'll second that suggestion. I usually plan a route carefully at home. It would be great to export that route to the Model S.

Just to note that Google Maps (the web site) has the ability to take a map destination and "send to car". It works for BMW at least, possibly others. For BMW, it uses a "BMW assist" login, and presumably BMW assist knows how to get that to your car.

 

[Adstein]

How does one choose between shortstop and fastest route in the hav system. I don't see a choice.
Thanks.

 

[Robert.Boston]

How does one choose between shortstop and fastest route in the hav system. I don't see a choice.
Thanks.

That's not in the Nav system currently.

 

[znino]

1. Perhaps the navigation system already does this and I've missed it, but it would be nice to have some "favorites" marked...especially "Home," or other commonly visited locations. In other words, "navigate 'Home'" would be a lot easier than searching through the navigation history.

2. I'd like to have the ability to set preferences for the street name font to be slightly larger. It stays the same size even when you magnify the map.

you have not missed anything. There is no way to set favorites for the NAV at the moment. You can only look at recent destinations. This will hopefully be in a future update. While we are at it, here are my update requests for the NAV software:

1. Most nav units allow to press a spot on the map and navigate to that point. This is not currently available
2. We should be able to save favorites in the NAV screen (Favorite places)
3. We should be able to re-order the favorites
4. We should have a default Home and Work favorites button
5. We should be able to put google maps with heading up (not just north up)
6. We should be able to delete ALL for recent places and searches (in one shot) (or batch delete multiple favorites)
7. When a destination is chosen, we should be given multiple route options (like in google maps) and able to choose the one we want

- - - Updated - - -

I had something wierd happen last night with the Nav System. I searched for a store in Santa Maria, CA and the address came up. I had the Nav system navigate to the store, and it gave me directions to a completely different location. I did not think too much of it and did another search at home to verify the system working properly. Everything was fine. The next time in santa Maria, I searched for a restaurant. I was driving on the same street, Stowell Road 1/4 mile west of 101, westbound. Again the correct address came up and I chose to navigate to it. Again it sent me about 4 miles in the wrong direction. It says it is navigating to the proper address, but points location about 4 miles off. Got out of Santa Maria and did another search and everything worked fine. I beleive there is a Google maps or GPS interference here preventing proper coordination of the Nav function. Navigation I choose to do in that location fails every time. Very reproducible.

I had the exact same issue happen with my car. Before leaving on delivery day i searched for my address at home. Google maps pinpointed the exact location. I said NAVIGATE and went on my way. As I got closer to my home I noticed the Nav telling me to take strange turns. Upon arriving at home I noticed that the destination point it had was a couple of miles away from the real destination. I am pretty sure that google maps has the right address and location but when it passed it over to the turn by turn system the address either got corrupted OR the turn by turn system has a wrong location for that address. Ideally google maps should NOT pass an address but rather a precise longitude and latitude and the turn by turn system should navigate to that. I would have then wanted to at least point to my house on the map (rather than by address) and navigate to that but as you probably know, navigating to a point on the map is not currently possible. I reproduced this bug over and over and it was faulty for a few streets in my neighborhood, not just mine.

Strange thing is today i had a Tesla ranger here for a handle problem and wanted to show him this map issue. I input my address exactly as i had done previously and surprise surprise, the turn by turn got it right so either something was fixed in the recent 4.2 update or aliens are at work.

 

[ElSupreme]

As for favorites. You can navigate to the address you have for your contacts, on our phone, through the contacts screen.

 

[znino]

As for favorites. You can navigate to the address you have for your contacts, on our phone, through the contacts screen.

Yes but that only works if I have that address linked to a contact. If I have a restaurant I like going to or a location where I have regular meetings it doesn't help me. Besides if I'm in the nav screen I shouldn't have to pull up the phone to then search for a contact. All navigation systems I know of have the ability to store favorites. It might even be a place on a map at a park. Needs to be implemented. Not all that complicated either.

 

[Adstein]

Thanks but the OP indicated that he gets a choice of routes. I have never seen that. Is it in fact possible?

 

[znino]

Thanks but the OP indicated that he gets a choice of routes. I have never seen that. Is it in fact possible?

I think maybe the OP meant that the nav system could have routed two possible ways but chose the one the OP found to be the poor choice. Not necessarily that two options were displayed and he had to choose one. That was my understanding. I've never seen route options pop up.

 

[bob_p]

I used the navigation frequently in my 6 year old LS. Features in that system missing from the MS:

> Waypoints (which can be used to correct bad routing)
> Options for routes (two quickest options, plus a shortest option)
> Preferences for toll roads, private roads, ...
> Display of real-time traffic data when navigation enabled (MS occludes the traffic data)
> Re-routing command to select alternate route
> Notification of upcoming traffic restrictions, with option to re-route (both on display and verbally - "stop-and-go traffic in 2 miles" or "left lane closed in 1 mile")
> Favorites list
> Specification of home address (to say "Drive to home")
> Quick nav buttons (like radio stations) to quickly select most frequent destinations
> POV display (show restaurants, movie theaters, ...) and ability to select POV icon for destination
> Traffic avoid blocks - mark roads that you want to avoid (can help to correct frequent bad routing)
> Zoom bar to show map scale values (MS has pinch and zoom out/in buttons, but not indication of distance on the map)
> Option to display businesses near highway exits (such as restaurants or hotels)
> Split screen display (ability to show both close-up and far-away map views, which can help to see nearby streets while also monitoring traffic conditions farther away); the Navigon display on the dashboard is not quite the same, since it can't be manipulated (zoom, scroll, ...)
> Rotating map, "up" pointing towards direction car is heading

Tesla should be adding these features as they get further and further down their missing functionality list - so it should be a matter of now if these features will be on the Model S - but when.

Even with its limitations, the Model S does have some significant advantages - much larger high resolution display, powerful voice recognition of destinations, navigon display on dashboard, pinch zooming, easier scrolling, satellite imaging, navigation from contacts, ability to have full control over the system while the car is moving (Lexus & Toyota disable most of the input features while the car is in motion), ...

Some additional features that would be pretty cool - overlay weather radar, set navigation from mobile device, learning navigation (have the system track which alternate routes you prefer, and adapt to use those routes instead of the calculated defaults), zoom in to Google "street view", ...

 

[brianman]

Yes but that only works if I have that address linked to a contact. If I have a restaurant I like going to or a location where I have regular meetings it doesn't help me.

He's hinting at a workaround that will help you.

If you have a favorite restaurant, create a contact for it and put in the address. You can put in a fake phone number if your phone is weaksauce enough to require one to create an address-only contact.

 

[Adstein]

I think maybe the OP meant that the nav system could have routed two possible ways but chose the one the OP found to be the poor choice. Not necessarily that two options were displayed and he had to choose one. That was my understanding. I've never seen route options pop up.

Ah, thanks. The Nav system certainly is not complete and I hope that Tesla quickly upgrades it to include the basic features of all modern systems.

- - - Updated - - -

I think maybe the OP meant that the nav system could have routed two possible ways but chose the one the OP found to be the poor choice. Not necessarily that two options were displayed and he had to choose one. That was my understanding. I've never seen route options pop up.

Ah, thanks. The Nav system certainly is not complete and I hope that Tesla quickly upgrades it to include the basic features of all modern systems.

 

[Owner]

I found two quirks that I am not fond of in the navigation system. Pictures here.

1. It talks to much. It tells you to turn when street names change. I have ended up muting mine and just watching the screen if I am confused.
2. It sometimes uses freeway names not numbers. Anyone in Northern California know where the "James Lick" freeway is? I thought the observatory on Mount Hamilton was named after him not a freeway.