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Round Trip Planning in Navigator?
- Thread starter Pruitt
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- Model S User Interface
robert774
Member
Unfortunately no. The closest thing you can do is to put in your destination, then at the start of the trip you can tap the bottom of the panel with the turn by turn directions (where it tells you remaining time and distance) and the car will display the estimated energy level remaining for the trip AND the return to your starting point.
I learned about this short coming last week when planning a trip from Austin to Houston. The destination is about 180 miles. Since we were going to drive to Houston and return the same day, I expected the built in Navigation system/trip planner to take us through the super charger that is located somewhat in the middle of the route. Instead it proposed taking us via a different route which not only avoided the super charger but also would have left us with 10% charge upon arrival in Houston - not enough to return home or to the nearest super charger!
I called Tesla technical support and they confirmed that round trip planning is NOT available. They instead asked me to select the super charger location that's in route as the destination and then from there select my final Houston destination.
Along the way I learned of other short comings....
1) The built-in Navigation system does not have an option to avoid tolls. Since the car had temporary tags I didn't want to bother with dealing with payments after the trip.
2) I used Google Maps on my phone to route me without using toll roads but left the Tesla navigation system on just to see if it would eventually catch up with Google maps. While it did catch for after some time, along the way on multiple occasions it would ask me to take alternate routes which were longer than those suggested by Google Maps. At times it seemed like it didn't recognize the road I was on which is surprising since these highways/roads have been around for some time.
3) Prior to the trip I had used EVTripPlanner.com on my laptop to map out my trip so I tried to use it on the built in Web browser in the car only to realize that the Tesla browser is outdated and does not have the latest Java support.
On the plus side.....
1) I made extensive use of Auto Pilot and it worked remarkably well. If the highway had 3 lanes I stuck to the middle lane but if it only had two I stayed on the right lane which, on couple of occasions, confused Auto Pilot since there were long gaps in lane markings on the right side around the exit.
2) We stopped at a super charger going and coming back from Houston. I was impressed by how fast it charges the batteries! This particular supercharger is close to a McDonalds and by the time we got out of the restroom I had a text on my phone that the car was sufficiently charged for us to continue our journey.
3) Had a chance to use the parallel parking feature and it worked flawlessly! The car was inches away from the curb when done and centered between the two cars.
We've been very impressed and happy with the car so far. Learning new things every day and hoping that Tesla is working on fixing the observed short comings and delivering it via an up-coming software update soon
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Boatguy
Active Member
Yes and no. If you touch the bottom panel of the trip planner box, where it really doesn't look like a button, it will flip over and basically tell you if you can make it back. It's not quite roundtrip planning, but it's what Tesla offers right now.
Unfortunately the round trip planning only works if you haven't changed the route. Once the route changes, it displays the round trip back to the point where the route changed.
While the Trip Planner is an improvement, we've found that it's risky to rely on it - especially if conditions aren't ideal (such as bad weather or heavy traffic) or you don't plan to drive at the posted speed limit. We usually will charge more than is recommended, to give us a larger cushion. And if the Trip Planner is recommending to skip an SC when we expected to stop, we'll likely stop anyway, than risk finding us short on energy and having to slow down a lot in order to stretch to the next SC.
The Trip Planner was marked as "beta" when it was first released - and since then, we haven't seen any noticeable improvement in functionality - and it remains a "beta" app.
So much more could be done to help drivers planning their trips. Some suggestions that would be extremely helpful:
While the Trip Planner is an improvement, we've found that it's risky to rely on it - especially if conditions aren't ideal (such as bad weather or heavy traffic) or you don't plan to drive at the posted speed limit. We usually will charge more than is recommended, to give us a larger cushion. And if the Trip Planner is recommending to skip an SC when we expected to stop, we'll likely stop anyway, than risk finding us short on energy and having to slow down a lot in order to stretch to the next SC.
The Trip Planner was marked as "beta" when it was first released - and since then, we haven't seen any noticeable improvement in functionality - and it remains a "beta" app.
So much more could be done to help drivers planning their trips. Some suggestions that would be extremely helpful:
- Allow drivers to specify the speed to be used for calculations, relative to posted speed limit
- Add waypoints, so that they could be taken into account when planning trip charging and supercharger stops
- Allow route customization (toll roads, manually selecting alternative routes - which would be easier if waypoints were supported)
- If not already done, the algorithm should try to adjust for weather conditions (especially low or high temperatures)
- If not already done, the algorithm should do a better job in adjusting for elevation changes, we've noticed that the projections can oscillate up to 5 to 10% of the projected destination charge in the middle of a trip segment, when going up and down large hills on the route. If the algorithm accounted for elevation changes, surely this would already have been included in the estimates.
- Real-time status should be provided for the superchargers - with information such as the current number of charging stations available, projected number of charging stations available when reaching the supercharger, and adjusted charging times based on the likely usage of the charging stations (i.e., if two cars are likely sharing the same charger). Tesla should have all of this data available in real-time, it should only be a matter of making this available to the trip planner.
Boatguy
Active Member
You're right! I tried it today and it's gone. The trip planner takes a step backwards in 8.0.
Boatguy
Active Member
I found it! In 8.0, check Settings > Apps > Navigation. There is a switch that will cause it to display the power remaining after a round trip. It's very awkward because then you get it all the time, as opposed to a peek when you want it. But the information is available.
Wouldn't it be nice if they updated the Owner's Manual for 8.0?
Yes, it is true that there is an option to "Always Show Estimated Round Trip Energy". However, when selected, it doesn't actually always show it. I've not been able to figure out the algorithm for when it's displayed, but sometimes it's there and sometimes not.
There must have been many long meetings weighing all the complex tradeoffs about when it should be visible.
I have that option checked. Sometimes I have to scroll the turn list to see the round trip estimate, but it is always available.
Compared to other navigation packages, there is a long list of surprisingly missing features - such as waypoints or route customization, features I had in our previous Toyota and Lexus cars. While the real-time traffic data is useful, it doesn't provide warnings of upcoming traffic problems, like you can get with Waze or my 2007 Lexus LS had ("warning, accident ahead, left two lanes are blocked").
And despite the up-to-date maps on the console using Google data, the navigation system is using data that can be 1 to 2 years out of date.
Round trip planning is one of the features that would be useful for trip planning.
And, hopefully, Tesla will eventually release an improved navigation systems - though it's been almost 5 years since the first Model S cars were produced, and since then we haven't seen many improvements yet in the navigation software, other than the trip planner app.
And despite the up-to-date maps on the console using Google data, the navigation system is using data that can be 1 to 2 years out of date.
Round trip planning is one of the features that would be useful for trip planning.
And, hopefully, Tesla will eventually release an improved navigation systems - though it's been almost 5 years since the first Model S cars were produced, and since then we haven't seen many improvements yet in the navigation software, other than the trip planner app.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Depends what you mean by "planning". Round trip energy prediction is available.
Bit of "Length of a piece of string" question ... but I find that is answered by fiddling around with various routes and waypoints using oen of:
EV Trip Planner
A Better Routeplanner
I use Waze to avoid slow/stopped traffic and so on, but it has on occasions resulted in near-catastrophic routes, energy-wise ... taking me on massively longer routes to save, sometimes, a very small amount of time.
tliving
Member
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