UI and other annoyances from 2,500 trip

[Boatguy]

Some observations from a 2,500 mile trip from San Francisco to Vancouver, BC and back.

• Supercharging triggered a rescan of my USB music SSD almost every time. I'd get back in the car and no music for roughly an hour.

• The v8.0 UI changes that require a double touch on the screen were really annoying. Touch, wait for the pathetically slow response, then select the desired function, all while keeping a good look down the road. And the Media Player shortcomings are well documented elsewhere but are so blatant when trying to use it while actually driving. Very poor UI for a car. It's pretty clear nobody who works on the CID apps has ever actually tried to use them while driving a car.

• The Nav system was always about a 1/4 mile behind. Wait for "turn now" and you're past the turn. And street names on the internal maps display (left side of instrument panel) were frequently different than the names in the directions on the Google maps on the CID.

• No waypoints in Nav was a pain. We don't go on road trips so we can go from SC to SC or current location to a single destination. I needed to be able to say we're going from here to there and then somewhere else and then to our destination. Figure it out nav system. Spend $100K on a car and then depend on a couple of third party apps to be able to figure out how much to charge it. You can do better Tesla!

• I could not have made the trip through the Pacific North West without CHAdeMO chargers. Even if the "planned" SCs (which are just gray clutter on the map display) were real, the SC network would not have supported our trip which only went to fairly major cities or their suburbs. I had to rely on the CHAdeMO at REI in Seattle to travel back and forth to the east or west. The SC network is still a long way from anything approaching the convenience of gas stations. Fortunately there are more and more CHAdeMO chargers and even though only 50kW they were a lot faster than waiting for L2 chargers.

• The SC realtime "occupied" status was frequently inaccurate showing more vehicles than were actually present. Fortunately the SCs themselves were rarely very busy.

• When we got to inland freeways and the heat shot up, the SCs would frequently downshift to about 60kW max with the MS cooler running full tilt and the fans on the SC blowing like crazy.

• Some SCs had buckets of soapy water with squeegees. No idea who was filling them, but really great to get a clean windshield. Take a cue from gas stations Tesla, SCs should have restrooms and a way to clean the windshield.

Five years after the introduction of the MS we're still pioneers. But the covered wagon pioneers never traveled so smoothly or with so much effortless power!

 

[EVCarGUy]

I completed a 7000 mile cross country and back yesterday. My last long road trip was 16 months before.

- The 8.0 auto hide requiring an extra screen tap is annoying as hell. It's made worse because they also removed the ability to select audio source using the right scroll wheel - most of my screen taps are to switch between the energy and audio apps soley to be able to select audio source.

" It's pretty clear nobody who works on the CID apps has ever actually tried to use them while driving a car." - yep, a bunch of ex-apple kids sitting in their cubicles with multiple 40-inch monitors. None of them has ever actually driven a Tesla.

- The SC 'occupied' status is wrong on about a third of the SC's I visited. Usually, the nav showed more stalls occupied than actual when I arrived. Yes, I suppose 4 vehicles in some remote SC might have all left in the 5 (?) minute refresh interval for the status, but I doubt it. The problem was worse in the western US than eastern.

- In the eastern US, the nav planner was pretty darn accurate on computing the energy required to the next stop. But, in the west , it was woefully wrong. Even driving 5-10mph below the speed limit, it was off by 10-15%. No it wasn't snowing. No, it wasn't raining hard. No, the wind wasn't blowing hard. It was just plain bogus.

- The autopilot (this was before the recent .28 update) likes to slow abruptly for no apparent reason. No, there was no overpass. No, there was no overhead sign. This was on wide open, straight for 10 miles ahead freeways with no vehicles anywhere nearby.

- Truck lust continues (even after I got the .28 update the night before my last day of driving). When passing, it likes to move right awfully f'ing close to the truck. I think it can't see the right lane line, and like any time it loses the right lane line, it "hunts" for it by moving right. This is why it often likes to take exits.

 

[Boatguy]

I just remembered another annoyance. On two occasions the Nav gave me bad directions to an SC! Trying to find the Bandon, OR SC, it told me to turn right off of 101-N where there was no right turn available and the SC was on the left.

The Google maps show the SC correctly so I don't know how the Nav got it wrong.

 

[HumanGenome]

Keep the rear camera at the top half of the screen to avoid double tapping to switch apps. Also gives you better vision for cars entering your blind spot and with lane switching.

A Better Routeplanner should be used as opposed to the Tesla navigation for route planning on road trips. Google navigation > Tesla navigation especially when in larger cities/metro areas and dealing with traffic.

Music issues are all well documented but agreed needs to be repeatedly reiterated.

Never once had a problem in the PNW with supercharger access, which routes specifically did you take that required a CHADEMO adapter? Did a 2000 mi road trip mostly along the coast and never had range anxiety. Might have to go 20 minutes out of way to get to a supercharger but can be easily planned around.

Tesla does not factor in elevation range loss, wind loss, temperature loss etc very well at all. Probably why @EVCarGUy had issues with the range usage algo in the western states. Those are tricky to get right in the Tesla nav but I really hope they take range data from the Tesla fleet to better the navigation range algorithm based on time of year etc (where weather can be somewhat predictable)

Occupy status for superchargers is probably slightly delayed. Re-tapping repeatedly seems to help. Never had an issue with an overcrowded supercharger in the PNW though.

The 60 kW because of high temps is just wrong. Superchargers don't scale down their electricity output based on the outside temperature.

 

[IdaX]

The 60 kW because of high temps is just wrong. Superchargers don't scale down their electricity output based on the outside temperature.

I had similar experience though on my last road trip. When the air is hot, and the charger is in the Sun, it gets Super Hot, and then throttles back to around 60kW, just as the OP observed.

 

[Boatguy]

Keep the rear camera at the top half of the screen to avoid double tapping to switch apps. Also gives you better vision for cars entering your blind spot and with lane switching.

I'm sure that works, but I shouldn't have to give up half the screen to fix a bad UI.

A Better Routeplanner should be used as opposed to the Tesla navigation for route planning on road trips. Google navigation > Tesla navigation especially when in larger cities/metro areas and dealing with traffic.

I used EVTripplanner for route planning, but I used the onboard nav for real time navigation.

Never once had a problem in the PNW with supercharger access, which routes specifically did you take that required a CHADEMO adapter? Did a 2000 mi road trip mostly along the coast and never had range anxiety. Might have to go 20 minutes out of way to get to a supercharger but can be easily planned around.

From Gig Harbor up through Port Angeles, Victoria, Vancouver Island, Vancouver and back down to Seattle. No SC's in that area after Centralia WA. Squamish SC is about an hour away, one way from Vancouver and Hope SC is roughly 100 miles to the east. Tesla needs to show the Canadians some love!

The only SC near Seattle is Monroe which is nowhere near I-90 to the Snoqualmies and won't help anyone heading to the Olympics. Fortunately CHAdeMOs in Silverdale, Aberdeen and Port Angeles, two in Victoria and two in downtown Seattle.

The 60 kW because of high temps is just wrong. Superchargers don't scale down their electricity output based on the outside temperature.

I typically saw 100-105kW at SCs, but only 60kW at Mt. Shasta and Corning with the ambient temp in the high 90's or low 100's and SOC < 20%. Just a coincidence?

 

[HumanGenome]

I agree that Victoria needs a SC, we went there and charged at our hotel this last winter. There is an SC in Vancouver though but if there is traffic (like there was when we were leaving from Victoria to Centralia) then it would have added on a couple extra hours to our trip. Beautiful area, wish we could have stayed longer! Love that BC Ferries route from Tsawwassen!

 

[EVCarGUy]

but only 60kW at Mt. Shasta and Corning with the ambient temp in the high 90's or low 100's and SOC < 20%. Just a coincidence?

Some folks report in another long thread that peak output of superchargers in California is now lower than elsewhere. That's my experience at Truckee, for example. It's been a year since I've been to Corning or Shasta.

I just finished a 7000mi cross country trip, and if I arrived with less than 50 rated miles, I saw 115kW at every SC, even in Grand Junction CO and Green River UT where the ambient temp was 98F and 101F respectively.

 

[Boatguy]

I agree that Victoria needs a SC, we went there and charged at our hotel this last winter. There is an SC in Vancouver though but if there is traffic (like there was when we were leaving from Victoria to Centralia) then it would have added on a couple extra hours to our trip. Beautiful area, wish we could have stayed longer! Love that BC Ferries route from Tsawwassen!

There are two SCs planned for Vancouver, but none there today. And I agree, the ferries were great!

 

[andrewket]

If you keep the nav screen on the bottom half, the application icons will stay on the screen.

 

[Boatguy]

If you keep the nav screen on the bottom half the application icons will stay on the screen.

Good tip!

 

[supratachophobia]

Some observations from a 2,500 mile trip from San Francisco to Vancouver, BC and back.

• Supercharging triggered a rescan of my USB music SSD almost every time. I'd get back in the car and no music for roughly an hour.

• The v8.0 UI changes that require a double touch on the screen were really annoying. Touch, wait for the pathetically slow response, then select the desired function, all while keeping a good look down the road. And the Media Player shortcomings are well documented elsewhere but are so blatant when trying to use it while actually driving. Very poor UI for a car. It's pretty clear nobody who works on the CID apps has ever actually tried to use them while driving a car.

• The Nav system was always about a 1/4 mile behind. Wait for "turn now" and you're past the turn. And street names on the internal maps display (left side of instrument panel) were frequently different than the names in the directions on the Google maps on the CID.

• No waypoints in Nav was a pain. We don't go on road trips so we can go from SC to SC or current location to a single destination. I needed to be able to say we're going from here to there and then somewhere else and then to our destination. Figure it out nav system. Spend $100K on a car and then depend on a couple of third party apps to be able to figure out how much to charge it. You can do better Tesla!

• I could not have made the trip through the Pacific North West without CHAdeMO chargers. Even if the "planned" SCs (which are just gray clutter on the map display) were real, the SC network would not have supported our trip which only went to fairly major cities or their suburbs. I had to rely on the CHAdeMO at REI in Seattle to travel back and forth to the east or west. The SC network is still a long way from anything approaching the convenience of gas stations. Fortunately there are more and more CHAdeMO chargers and even though only 50kW they were a lot faster than waiting for L2 chargers.

• The SC realtime "occupied" status was frequently inaccurate showing more vehicles than were actually present. Fortunately the SCs themselves were rarely very busy.

• When we got to inland freeways and the heat shot up, the SCs would frequently downshift to about 60kW max with the MS cooler running full tilt and the fans on the SC blowing like crazy.

• Some SCs had buckets of soapy water with squeegees. No idea who was filling them, but really great to get a clean windshield. Take a cue from gas stations Tesla, SCs should have restrooms and a way to clean the windshield.

Five years after the introduction of the MS we're still pioneers. But the covered wagon pioneers never traveled so smoothly or with so much effortless power!

Was range mode on?

 

[Boatguy]

Was range mode on?

Energy Saving mode was ON, Always Connected was ON.

Range Mode was OFF.

 

[supratachophobia]

Energy Saving mode was ON, Always Connected was ON.

Range Mode was OFF.

I vote anyone who has rescan issues to turn energy savings off for 14 days and see if the results are any different.

 

[wayner]

I agree that Victoria needs a SC, we went there and charged at our hotel this last winter. There is an SC in Vancouver though but if there is traffic (like there was when we were leaving from Victoria to Centralia) then it would have added on a couple extra hours to our trip. Beautiful area, wish we could have stayed longer! Love that BC Ferries route from Tsawwassen!

There is a SuperCharger opening in Nanaimo imminently. Until yesterday it was the only SC in Canada listed as being under construction (or in permitting) in all of Canada.

 

[brianman]

Some observations from a 2,500 mile trip from San Francisco to Vancouver, BC and back.

• I could not have made the trip through the Pacific North West without CHAdeMO chargers. Even if the "planned" SCs (which are just gray clutter on the map display) were real, the SC network would not have supported our trip which only went to fairly major cities or their suburbs. I had to rely on the CHAdeMO at REI in Seattle to travel back and forth to the east or west. The SC network is still a long way from anything approaching the convenience of gas stations. Fortunately there are more and more CHAdeMO chargers and even though only 50kW they were a lot faster than waiting for L2 chargers.

Given you have marked your profile Location as SF Bay Area, please pass this feedback to Tesla for us -- "WA supercharger build-out is well beyond the expectations of a CA driver".

As for the other directions, as a WA driver vacationing in CA it's so relaxing "putting up with" the CA build-out of superchargers.

 

[thegruf]

I'll add another couple of annoyances to the Nav list:

Double tap the map used to zoom and re-center on where you double tapped the map, so you could zoom and pan at the same time.
It does not do this now, just zooms on the center of the map then you have to pan separately.

Without a route set and with the map facing North , if you pinch zoom it is too easy to rotate the map.
Previously if this happened you could tap the N icon and the map would reset to north orientation.
It no longer does this and it is a pain to re-orient the map exactly to N.

Both of these are "new" features introduced that I dislike and hope that Tesla read this and revert to the previous functionality.

In general I agree wholeheatedly that the UI need to be improved for in car use.
Specifically the number of button presses should be minimise at every opportunity not increased. The auto-hide top bar is universally disliked from what I read here, myself included.

Everytime I look at the CID I think stunning but what a wasted opportunity. Sooo much more could be done (without adding processing overhead).

 

[Boatguy]

Everytime I look at the CID I think stunning but what a wasted opportunity. Sooo much more could be done (without adding processing overhead).

Yes! The CID apps are perhaps the biggest con from Tesla. We're all used to smart phones and pads and the level of application quality that we enjoy using them. We see that big screen at the Tesla store and expect nothing less. We click a few buttons, see a lot of apps and go on to place an order. The car arrives and we start using the CID apps and find out they're sort of iPhone 3 level of quality and Tesla doesn't even make any pretense about improving them.