Post-Test Drive Questions

[ZipUK]

Hi all,

I just got back from a contactless test drive and as far as a "regular" car driving experience goes it was very impressive in terms of the performance, handling, comfort etc.

What I did find surprising though was that I wasn't all that fond of the Infotainment/Fancy Navigation features which may be down to my lack of education so I have a few questions which will help with my decision to buy down the road. Apologies if this is a long post!

For reference, I'm currently driving a manual Ford, and I heavily use Carplay and Google Maps as my means of interacting with the car.

Is there any way to swap the side of the screen the Nav is on?
I noticed whilst driving around and setting a route, that the Nav was quite zoomed out and hard to follow causing me to miss a couple of turnings whilst I was out on my drive. I have a good feel for the speed that I'm driving, but not always for where I'm going and so having this closer would be more beneficial.

Does TeslaNav support Alternative Routes?
I know that the Nav system is built on top of Google Maps but one of the things I noticed that was different was that there wasn't a means to see a different route whilst driving. On my CarPlay nav, if I'm on the highway it will offer routes with similar ETAs as I'm coming up to intersections/junctions - is this supported on Tesla's nav?

TACC (Cruise control) - Very sharp breaking?
When I drove out of the dealership I immediately hit heavy traffic... Great! I thought, one of the first things I wanted to try was getting the car to speed up/slow down without having to manually drive the car. What I found was, the car would start crawling and following the car in front, but rather than gently slowing with the car in front it would instead absolutely slam on the breaks and nearly put me through the front screen - surely this can't be right! Sometimes it would also fail to pull off when the car in front moved on. I most definitely was doing something wrong here, but how could I adjust/fix this?

Autopilot/Enhanced Autopilot - Adjusting speeds / Not accelerating
Once I got out of traffic and onto the motorway, the car really started to come into its own which was great. I tried out some of the autopilot features when generally cruising around it was great and I can definitely understand the hype.

Two things that I struggled with though; when joining the highway if I activated autopilot whilst I was still getting up to speed (say I activated it at 56mph whilst going up to 70mph) the car would stay at the speed I activated it at rather than continuing to accelerate up to the correct speed. The other was say I joined a 40mph road, which then changed later on to a 60mph road the car would not automatically speed up and I would have to intervene. Again, much like the above question, I'm sure its me and not the car so what was I doing wrong?

Enhanced Autopilot - Auto Lane change only (Disable NoA?)
Is there a way to disable the full NoA features, but leave Auto Lange Change on? I've watched a few videos since my test drive and I don't think I need the car to take me on/off the motorways (plus the system seems a bit erratic/aggressive), but I do like the idea of getting on the motorway, activating AP and using the lane change features rather than having to be constantly deactivating/reactivating AP each time I want to overtake. Is this possible, or a misunderstanding of the feature? (sidebar conversation, is it even worth spending the ££ for this...)

Thanks again in advance for answering some/all of my questions, like I said at the top of my post, great car probably a bit of an idiot driver haha.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

The nav should zoom into the local area when there's a route set. There have been a couple of reports of it not doing so but I'm not sure why.

TACC has a habit of exactly mirroring the car in front of it in queues, which can be incredibly harsh.. other times it's fine. It'll try to keep a minimum distance when setting off so not starting immediately is expected.

For the speed, you either activate with a short press to stay at the current speed or a long press to set to the speed limit. That's adjustable in the options but most people prefer activation at current speed (because the car doesn't always have a correct idea of the speed limit and accelerating to 70 in an average speed camera zone is a bad idea).

Speed limit adjustment doesn't work automatically (well, it does for some people, we've had entire threads about it, it's not consistent at least) but you can match current limit by pulling down on the stalk for a couple of seconds.

Auto lane change works if you have FSD (which the test car will have if it has NoA). IMO it's not worth it but it's your money.. Without that you have do deactivate to change lane.

 

[Neilio]

Is there any way to swap the side of the screen the Nav is on?
I noticed whilst driving around and setting a route, that the Nav was quite zoomed out and hard to follow causing me to miss a couple of turnings whilst I was out on my drive. I have a good feel for the speed that I'm driving, but not always for where I'm going and so having this closer would be more beneficial.

Sadly not. The screen layout is set in the current software. It's one thing I have a bee in my bonnet about. People rave about the cars infotainment but I find it so "meh" because it's so customisable. The only hint I have is don't use the satellite view overlay. I find the map much clearer when it's just displaying the roads and not satellite view.

Does TeslaNav support Alternative Routes?
I know that the Nav system is built on top of Google Maps but one of the things I noticed that was different was that there wasn't a means to see a different route whilst driving. On my CarPlay nav, if I'm on the highway it will offer routes with similar ETAs as I'm coming up to intersections/junctions - is this supported on Tesla's nav?

Sadly not. Again the Nav is limited. It has been literally 6 days since I've even been able to set waypoints

TACC (Cruise control) - Very sharp breaking?
When I drove out of the dealership I immediately hit heavy traffic... Great! I thought, one of the first things I wanted to try was getting the car to speed up/slow down without having to manually drive the car. What I found was, the car would start crawling and following the car in front, but rather than gently slowing with the car in front it would instead absolutely slam on the breaks and nearly put me through the front screen - surely this can't be right! Sometimes it would also fail to pull off when the car in front moved on. I most definitely was doing something wrong here, but how could I adjust/fix this?

This can be erratic. I've found the same. The only comfort is it could probably improve with software updates

Autopilot/Enhanced Autopilot - Adjusting speeds / Not accelerating
Once I got out of traffic and onto the motorway, the car really started to come into its own which was great. I tried out some of the autopilot features when generally cruising around it was great and I can definitely understand the hype.

Two things that I struggled with though; when joining the highway if I activated autopilot whilst I was still getting up to speed (say I activated it at 56mph whilst going up to 70mph) the car would stay at the speed I activated it at rather than continuing to accelerate up to the correct speed. The other was say I joined a 40mph road, which then changed later on to a 60mph road the car would not automatically speed up and I would have to intervene. Again, much like the above question, I'm sure its me and not the car so what was I doing wrong?

Someone else will be able to point to the correct menu setting but yes, in the autopilto menu you can set the car to either engage AP at the speed you're driving or at the speed limit for the road.

Enhanced Autopilot - Auto Lane change only (Disable NoA?)
Is there a way to disable the full NoA features, but leave Auto Lange Change on? I've watched a few videos since my test drive and I don't think I need the car to take me on/off the motorways (plus the system seems a bit erratic/aggressive), but I do like the idea of getting on the motorway, activating AP and using the lane change features rather than having to be constantly deactivating/reactivating AP each time I want to overtake. Is this possible, or a misunderstanding of the feature? (sidebar conversation, is it even worth spending the ££ for this...)

Thanks again in advance for answering some/all of my questions, like I said at the top of my post, great car probably a bit of an idiot driver haha.

I don't believe you can. I think NoA is an all or nothing thing. TBH I find it best to get up to motorway cruise and then set it. I agree it is dodgy entering and if you set it when you first get on the motorway it'll try and make you change lane for no reason when to "follow route"

 

[UkNorthampton]

TACC (Cruise control) - Very sharp breaking?
When I drove out of the dealership I immediately hit heavy traffic... Great! I thought, one of the first things I wanted to try was getting the car to speed up/slow down without having to manually drive the car. What I found was, the car would start crawling and following the car in front, but rather than gently slowing with the car in front it would instead absolutely slam on the breaks and nearly put me through the front screen - surely this can't be right! Sometimes it would also fail to pull off when the car in front moved on. I most definitely was doing something wrong here, but how could I adjust/fix this?

Autopilot/Enhanced Autopilot - Adjusting speeds / Not accelerating
Once I got out of traffic and onto the motorway, the car really started to come into its own which was great. I tried out some of the autopilot features when generally cruising around it was great and I can definitely understand the hype.

Two things that I struggled with though; when joining the highway if I activated autopilot whilst I was still getting up to speed (say I activated it at 56mph whilst going up to 70mph) the car would stay at the speed I activated it at rather than continuing to accelerate up to the correct speed. The other was say I joined a 40mph road, which then changed later on to a 60mph road the car would not automatically speed up and I would have to intervene. Again, much like the above question, I'm sure its me and not the car so what was I doing wrong?

TACC/braking - doesn't on mine

Speed limits, looks like the demo car has them set the same as I have (not default). The alternative is that a wrong speed limit causes unexpected acceleration.

I prefer setting the current speed and then using the right scrollwheel to up/down the set speed. Otherwise I could hold down the right stalk to go at the recognised speed limit. I normally dab the brake to disengage as I might be steering, so it's easier for me than using the right stalk (up) to disengage.

Loads of way so setting things/driving. Just have to choose what's best for you. I was talking to people recently who hate HOLD and prefer CREEP. each to their own.

 

[Mrklaw]

after a few long trips I finally sorted the nav view as that was annoying me

I have the 'steps' list fully expanded so I can see the % charge at arrival in case I need to stop. If you do that, the map stays zoomed out to show the entire route (I do wish it would auto zoom to the next step..)

If you shrink that view by dragging the bottom of the list up, so you only see the next turning, it zooms the map right in. Again I'd rather it zooms to the next turning, but its better for me than fully zoomed out especially when you're in the final stages where you want to see upcoming turns.

slightly annoying if you're travelling N/E as the path gets clipped by the steps view so you get very little warning of upcoming junctions visually

 

[Mrklaw]

for auto lane change I'd quite like it to do it for me but not worth the price of EAP. If you're in 'normal' autopilot if you indicate it'll automatically cancel AP but maintain TACC. so you can change lanes and then a quick double tap to re-engage AP.

 

[melduk]

Does TeslaNav support Alternative Routes?
I know that the Nav system is built on top of Google Maps but one of the things I noticed that was different was that there wasn't a means to see a different route whilst driving. On my CarPlay nav, if I'm on the highway it will offer routes with similar ETAs as I'm coming up to intersections/junctions - is this supported on Tesla's nav?

No but in China Tesla's do. I believe as of very recently so I imagine it will come in the UK in time.

Enhanced Autopilot - Auto Lane change only (Disable NoA?)
Is there a way to disable the full NoA features, but leave Auto Lange Change on? I've watched a few videos since my test drive and I don't think I need the car to take me on/off the motorways (plus the system seems a bit erratic/aggressive), but I do like the idea of getting on the motorway, activating AP and using the lane change features rather than having to be constantly deactivating/reactivating AP each time I want to overtake. Is this possible, or a misunderstanding of the feature? (sidebar conversation, is it even worth spending the ££ for this...)

You don't need to use NoA, I have never really used NoA but use Auto Lane Change all the time. You also don't need FSD only EAP (Enhanced Autopilot).

I really like Auto Lane Change, I massively miss this when its not available (one road I've found this doesn't work on since getting my car I don't know why). Its extremely annoying to disengaged Autopilot all the time and then reengage it once moved lanes. Also I find it moves lanes really well. It is annoying when it fails to move but its generally for a reason.

I am glad I didn't buy FSD but I don't really regret EAP. Even though I have yet to use Autopark (the only times its come up for me is when I have basically finished parking and I am not giving it credit for parking then).

I actually use Summon quite a lot, if I park and then realise I didn't bother reversing enough, I finish it off with Summon or the parking spot is tight to get back in the car, I use Summon to bring the car out (have never used Smart Summon though).

 

[CaptFish2003]

You can press the top left button on the sat nav to toggle between seeing the whole trip or zoom in view, either orientated north or aligned with your orientation.

 

[Adopado]

I noticed whilst driving around and setting a route, that the Nav was quite zoomed out and hard to follow causing me to miss a couple of turnings whilst I was out on my drive.

you can have it as zoomed in or out as much as you choose

 

[ZipUK]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, I was able to schedule another test drive for this morning and I was better able to get on with the car systems or at least understand what/why the software was doing.

Nav options were much better - I was able to get to the "basic" map view and get it nice and zoomed-in. Some minor nitpicks about the UI not showing major/minor roads in different colours but here we are.

I think EAP is going to be a miss for me, or at least for what I want to use it for - the lane change feature whilst a cool party trick I found too finicky (even though I was gently applying an input to the wheel to confirm the change, this would often take me out of AP) and when it did work, the merge was very gradual and I feel would annoy drivers behind me, especially if I was moving out of the way of a faster vehicle.

AP Acceleration/Deceleration on motorways was better - I just tapped the speed on the screen and it made the adjustments for me so much happier with that. One thing it won't do is adjust the speed up/down on smart motorways with traffic management active (70 > 60 > 70), but I think this is because the car isn't using the cameras to pick up the road signs, but rather using the road metadata from google maps (if you've ever edited/contributed on Google maps, one of the things you have to contribute is the speed of the road you are adding/adjusting).

Following distance in traffic was much smoother, although again a nitpick I wish you could do 3.5 car lengths. I was able to recreate the slamming on the breaks issue - I think this is caused by having TACC enabled and applying a bit of throttle when the car is stopped in traffic to get it to crawl forward rather than just letting the car handle things.


All in all a good experience and I got what I wanted out of the drive - roll on getting a Y delivered sometime in the near future!

 

[init6]

What kind of road were you driving in TACC when the car braked heavily? Works best on dual carraigeways and motorways. Not recommended for other road types although with local knowledge you'll soon learn where it can be used in other cases.

 

[ZipUK]

On the first test drive, it was just a local road in the centre of Birmingham. Probably not the ideal use case but I liked the idea of the car managing the stopping/starting in heavy traffic. I think this was a combination of the following distance being set low, and likely the scenario I encountered today:

On the test drive today, I had TACC enabled queueing towards a roundabout. As I was trying to closely follow the flow of the car in front to flow onto the roundabout, I added a dab of acceleration and this is where the TACC fought me and I can completely understand why (car accelerating within my 4 car-length follow distance).

 

[init6]

From the manual:

"Traffic-Aware Cruise Control is primarily intended for driving on dry, straight roads, such as highways and freeways."

Will it work on other roads? Yes.

Will it not work on other roads? Also Yes.

 

[ZipUK]

Cheers for the input

 

[Adopado]

. One thing it won't do is adjust the speed up/down on smart motorways with traffic management active (70 > 60 > 70), but I think this is because the car isn't using the cameras to pick up the road signs,

That’s right on smart motorway signs. The car does actively read speed signs on normal roads. (As well as map meta data) There’s a possibility that the motorway sign reading may be added at some point with a software update I would imagine.

 

[Neilman]

I wonder if the smart (gantry) speed signs don't register because (a) they're in the wrong place (i.e. not on a lollipop in the left verge) and (b) because the digits flash?
Those giant side message boards also flash and their messages can't always be read properly from my Nextbase dashcam replays.
You get a strobocopic effect only seing partial segments to a digital camera.
That would make reading them accurately somewhat difficult.

 

[MrT3]

You get a strobocopic effect only seing partial segments to a digital camera.
That would make reading them accurately somewhat difficult.

Other vehicles don't have a problem reading them.

 

[Wol747]

>>
Sadly not. The screen layout is set in the current software. It's one thing I have a bee in my bonnet about. People rave about the cars infotainment but I find it so "meh" because it's so customisable. The only hint I have is don't use the satellite view overlay. I find the map much clearer when it's just displaying the roads and not satellite view.<<

I think the infotainment is dreadful in this day and age - it's as if an amateur programmed it in the nineteen eighties!

Each of the screens has a totally different UI, different button positions and usage - one (is it Netflix or YouTube) even cuts out the wheel volume control and requires you to find a tiny slider right at the top of its screen!
The TV on mine usually crashes the whole application. The apps used to load slowly but unobtrusively - now each one has a slowly crawling bar to entertain you as it glacially moves across the screen.
The bl**dy music screen always pops up when you get in - I want to DRIVE! not play with music: I'LL let you know when I want to have half the map blocked by a music selector.
Etc Etc
/rant over/

 

[init6]

The bl**dy music screen always pops up when you get in - I want to DRIVE! not play with music: I'LL let you know when I want to have half the map blocked by a music selector.

Mine doesn't do that. If I have the mini-music screen up then that is still in there the next time I drive (but doesn't cover much of the map). Otherwise I see the full map.
Is this a profile setting? Or maybe just a reboot needed.

 

[Drew57]

Same here @init6 & for @Wol747, I always use that mini music bar so it's a permanent fixture. Also useful when I open the energy overlay while driving - by tapping the music bar, the display reverts to the map (with music below) which is far easier than trying to hit a small x in the corner of an overlay.