Significant Software “Tweaks”

[Padelford]

I’m tired of getting more games and Sketchpad updates. I want the following instead:

1) I want the current vehicle altitude shown in the current location message at the bottom of the Nav display. It’s not a big deal is you live in Fremont, CA, but it’s really interesting when driving up in mountains. My 2003 Town & Country had a Nav system that always displayed current altitude. All the data are already in the GPS data the vehicle receives, and the altitude value is decided with the lat-long data. I strongly suspect it’s about 10 lines of code or less to put the altitude in the display.

2) virtually all other vehicles with ultrasonic sensors provide audible chirps to cue the driver about approaching obstructions or pedestrians. The chirps increase in repetition rate as the obstruction approaches and become continuous when the obstruction is too close. My Audi has two different chirp tones for forward or rear obstacles. In my Tesla, I’ve come damn close too many times to hitting pedestrians walking past behind me in a parking lot as I back up because there isn’t ANY audible warning that they’re there. Sure, if I look down at the displays, I may see the color contour change suddenly when someone walks by, but looking down is the LAST thing one does while backing up in a busy parking lot! Please, Tesla, add a proximity chirp alert like just about everyone else has!

BTW, I have submitted these ideas in the past more than once and nothing has happened. Except for more games.

 

[ajdelange]

I too find it very strange that altitude is not available either on the screen or through the API. Teslawinds solves this problem by pulling the latitude and longitude and looking up the elevation at those coordinates in a data base. It also looks up the gradient in the direction you are traveling at that point which is useful information but it seems to me that Tesla should provide this information directly.

If you want altitude information you can get Teslawinds or use one of the apps for your smart phone that tap its GPS receiver.

 

[Silicon Desert]

I'm not that interested in altitude on a regular bases, but when I am interested, I just say "Hey siri what is my altitude" and it tells me. Android phones have the same capability through apps.

 

[ajdelange]

It's not so much the altitude that is wanted as the gradient along your route as gradient translates directly into an additional Wh/mi requirement. Siri is tapping the GPS receiver in your phone. Teslawinds is getting altitude and gradient from a database. Still it seems strage that Tesla doesn't grab altitude from its GPS receiver. I'm sure it actually does. It's weird that it doesn't display it though. There is certainly plenty of real estate on the instrument cluster panel.

 

[Padelford]

It's not so much the altitude that is wanted as the gradient along your route as gradient translates directly into an additional Wh/mi requirement. Siri is tapping the GPS receiver in your phone. Teslawinds is getting altitude and gradient from a database. Still it seems strage that Tesla doesn't grab altitude from its GPS receiver. I'm sure it actually does. It's weird that it doesn't display it though. There is certainly plenty of real estate on the instrument cluster panel.

The altitude data are in the same GPS message as the lat-long. That's why I insist the software to add a current altitude display is only a few lines of code.

 

[Freerster]

It also would be nice to have waypoints on the gps. So you can go from one point to the other without having to put a new address in. It also is useful when planning a trip in town with multi stops. I'm sure it wouldn't take much to tweak it.

 

[ajdelange]

The altitude data are in the same GPS message as the lat-long. That's why I insist the software to add a current altitude display is only a few lines of code.

GPS doesn't send messages with positions in them. It only sends messages about satellite health and ephemerides. It also sends timed signals from which "pseudoranges" to each satellite can be measured by the ground receiver. Latitude, longitude, local clock offset and and distance from the center of the coordinate system are then calculated from the pseudoranges. You have to calculate all 4 at once in order to get the best latitude and longitude. Once you have the distance from origin number you must then translate that to height above ellipsoid (easy to do) and then to height above geoid (a bit more complicated). Then that must be translated to the datum. So its a good deal more than a few lines of code that is involved. But in a modern receiver the extra code, extensive though it may be, is easily incorporated and there is little reason that it couldn't be included in the Tesla Nav displays and API.

Now it's probable that Tesla buys a GPS "engine" which is the size of a large postage stamp and does all this math with the interface being various messages from the engine to a host computer. If that's what you meant then you would be right if, for example, the position message contained Lat, Lon, altitude WRT to ellipsoid, and geoid height above the ellipsoid as, for example, the NMEA standard position message does. In such a case there is even less excuse for not displaying it.

Sometimes data is left off because the manufacturer is afraid the user may misinterpret it or because the user can't interpret it. This is the old tale of the idiot light replacing the instruments in automobiles. When the Coast Guard ordered new GPS based timing equipment for its LORAN chains the manufacturer thoughtfully put in a simple graphical display showing the azimuth and elevation of each satellite the station could see. As no one in the program office could understand the display, no matter how many times he explained it, he took it out.