Question on Maps when 3G cellular is not working

[rainman50]

I got a P85 classic in October 2014.
I got all options except pano roof and 3rd row seats.
When my cellular service is down the maps eventually go to a blank grid. I thought that when I got the car that it had on-board maps and as long as the GPS is working would show streets and such.

Is this normal?
Thanks for any comments.

 

[rainman50]

(Wanted to edit my post here but there was a 10 minute timeout not allowing it)
I meant rear facing seats not 3rd row seats.

 

[mikeash]

You got it mostly right, but the onboard maps are only displayed on the instrument cluster. The little view that shows your route next to the speedometer and such comes from the onboard maps. The touchscreen maps come from Google and won't work without a data connection. Navigation still works, and you can enter an address and navigate to it, you just don't get the big touchscreen map.

Theoretically, they could use the onboard maps data to draw something useful on the touchscreen too, but for whatever reason, they don't.

 

[rainman50]

You got it mostly right, but the onboard maps are only displayed on the instrument cluster. The little view that shows your route next to the speedometer and such comes from the onboard maps. The touchscreen maps come from Google and won't work without a data connection. Navigation still works, and you can enter an address and navigate to it, you just don't get the big touchscreen map.

Theoretically, they could use the onboard maps data to draw something useful on the touchscreen too, but for whatever reason, they don't.

Thank a lot for the info. That clears up a cpncern I had.

 

[DaveVa]

Thank a lot for the info. That clears up a cpncern I had.

One thing to add, when you lose cellular coverage, you have to enter in an actual street address. You can not use the "points of interest" capabilities. I believe the on-board capability is powered by Navagon maps.

 

[bob_p]

Tesla should cache the Google map data - since most driving is done in the same general area - and the actual roads don't change very often. It doesn't make sense for the software to keep loading the same map fragments - every time the car drives through the same areas.

At least for the early cars, there was supposed to be additional on board storage available for music. This was never enabled - and I thought the plan was to use that area instead for map caching - which hasn't happened.

If they cached the maps, performance of the map display should be improved considerably - and should work even if the 3G/LTE connection is lost, only losing access to the real-time traffic data, if the map fragment was already present in the local storage.

 

[kritlop]

Tesla should cache the Google map data - since most driving is done in the same general area - and the actual roads don't change very often. It doesn't make sense for the software to keep loading the same map fragments - every time the car drives through the same areas.

At least for the early cars, there was supposed to be additional on board storage available for music. This was never enabled - and I thought the plan was to use that area instead for map caching - which hasn't happened.

If they cached the maps, performance of the map display should be improved considerably - and should work even if the 3G/LTE connection is lost, only losing access to the real-time traffic data, if the map fragment was already present in the local storage.

Yes, and even google does that with their maps app on the iphone. It will let you download "offline" maps for areas that you frequent. A nice little feature in areas with spotty cell coverage.