Update 2018.12 -- So where's the Navigation Update?

[tezzla]

I got 2018.12 (from 2018.6) on Tuesday (around 2am) and the maps came on Thursday morning!

Why is everyone complaining?

 

[David29]

You ABSOLUTELY MUST be on WiFi to get the maps. No WiFi = No Maps. Unlike the firmware updates like 2018.X, which can load over LTE, maps are 5-10GB files that require WIFi because Tesla (in their words to me) "cannot afford to spend $10 worth of LTE data per car to push maps and advised me to park my car near a coffee shop that has WiFi. I finally gave up and spent a lot of money on a portable WiFi hotspot for our apartment garage plus data plan, so now we have WiFi because Tesla is too cheap!

I have never had a WiFi connection to my car because I park too far away from my condo for it to work. But I have gotten map updates twice in the past 3 years, last one quite a long time ago.

 

[MelaniainLA]

I have never had a WiFi connection to my car because I park too far away from my condo for it to work. But I have gotten map updates twice in the past 3 years, last one quite a long time ago.

Those days are over. See the email response I got from Tesla executive team:

“Sorry to hear that you are having trouble getting the new maps update pushed to your vehicle! Definitely want you to get updates when they become available, however, it is not feasible or sustainable for us to push map updates over LTE due to the costs Tesla would incur as a result. Map files are multiple gigabytes in size.

Similar to your expensive data plan, Tesla also has to pay for the LTE connection in your vehicle, thus we cannot offer this option. There are many owners who request this, and if we obliged then you can possibly imagine the exponential costs we would incur as a result.

Similarly, we cannot offer service center WiFi because we have to use the connections therein for local and remote service. As such, allowing customers to download map updates via this option would slow down the entire network within the service center, overloading bandwidth and preventing resolution of other customer issues.

Lastly, there are currently 200,000 vehicles that could hypothetically receive LTE map updates. Imagining it would cost Tesla $10 minimum per map update via LTE, which would cost approximately $2,000,000; you can quickly see why this would be problematic for our future as a business.

The best existing option may be for you connect at a Starbucks if you don’t have any other convenient method of connecting your Tesla to WiFi. I regret that we cannot provide your desired resolution, but I hope the information provided herein helps clarify our position on this matter.

Best,

Scott McCarthy | Executive Care
12832 Frontrunner Blvd | Draper, UT 84020

“

 

[David29]

Those days are over. See the email response I got from Tesla executive team:

“Sorry to hear that you are having trouble getting the new maps update pushed to your vehicle! Definitely want you to get updates when they become available, however, it is not feasible or sustainable for us to push map updates over LTE due to the costs Tesla would incur as a result. Map files are multiple gigabytes in size.

Similar to your expensive data plan, Tesla also has to pay for the LTE connection in your vehicle, thus we cannot offer this option. There are many owners who request this, and if we obliged then you can possibly imagine the exponential costs we would incur as a result.

Similarly, we cannot offer service center WiFi because we have to use the connections therein for local and remote service. As such, allowing customers to download map updates via this option would slow down the entire network within the service center, overloading bandwidth and preventing resolution of other customer issues.

Lastly, there are currently 200,000 vehicles that could hypothetically receive LTE map updates. Imagining it would cost Tesla $10 minimum per map update via LTE, which would cost approximately $2,000,000; you can quickly see why this would be problematic for our future as a business.

The best existing option may be for you connect at a Starbucks if you don’t have any other convenient method of connecting your Tesla to WiFi. I regret that we cannot provide your desired resolution, but I hope the information provided herein helps clarify our position on this matter.

Best,

Scott McCarthy | Executive Care
12832 Frontrunner Blvd | Draper, UT 84020

“

Interesting. Guess I need a plan B.
The owner's manual (mine, anyway) says the car will automatically connect to WiFi at the service center -- I guess those days are over.
Also, I wonder what Starbucks thinks of this suggestion to use their WiFi -- let Starbucks absorb that $2 million fee!?

 

[MelaniainLA]

Interesting. Guess I need a plan B.
The owner's manual (mine, anyway) says the car will automatically connect to WiFi at the service center -- I guess those days are over.
Also, I wonder what Starbucks thinks of this suggestion to use their WiFi -- let Starbucks absorb that $2 million fee!?

Starbucks uses WiFi not LTE do their cost is zero. Haha

Here is your plan B:

It’s impossible to get maps OTA. I emailed Elon directly (have his personal email) and got his executive response guy who wrote a long explanation about how the 5GB per car OTA LTE data would bankrupt the company (he even did the math for me!) so it will never happen.

I finally sucked it up and this week bought/installed an AT&T Mobley hotspot in the car with a $10/mo unlimited data plan!! Google it. It installs (clicks into) the OBDII port of the car (takes 2 seconds) and creates a permanent WiFi hotspot in the car with LTE. 1GB included but on the vehicle plan (not available with other hotspot plans) when you exceed 1GB it just slows the connection rather than charging you exhorbitant fees. My cars downloaded nearly 6GB over the last couple days already! Worth the expense!!! And you’ll be prioritized for other OTA updates too!

They’re out of stock, possibly because I posted about Mobley elsewhere and everyone rushed to buy them. Great deal! Be patient and get Mobley.

 

[chillaban]

Starbucks uses WiFi not LTE do their cost is zero. Haha

Here is your plan B:

It’s impossible to get maps OTA. I emailed Elon directly (have his personal email) and got his executive response guy who wrote a long explanation about how the 5GB per car OTA LTE data would bankrupt the company (he even did the math for me!) so it will never happen.

I finally sucked it up and this week bought/installed an AT&T Mobley hotspot in the car with a $10/mo unlimited data plan!! Google it. It installs (clicks into) the OBDII port of the car (takes 2 seconds) and creates a permanent WiFi hotspot in the car with LTE. 1GB included but on the vehicle plan (not available with other hotspot plans) when you exceed 1GB it just slows the connection rather than charging you exhorbitant fees. My cars downloaded nearly 6GB over the last couple days already! Worth the expense!!! And you’ll be prioritized for other OTA updates too!

They’re out of stock, possibly because I posted about Mobley elsewhere and everyone rushed to buy them. Great deal! Be patient and get Mobley.

Plus, Starbucks uses Google-provided wifi so you've already sold your soul in exchange for a couple pennies of bulk traffic. Can't find an ounce of compassion in my heart for that


Yeah, for people without easy wifi connectivity, using a mobile hotspot or tethering to your phone for an hour or two in a parking lot are both extremely reasonable approaches IMO. I just have a normal AT&T smart phone and I got my maps over wifi 2 days ago by tethering for 3 hours.

 

[MelaniainLA]

Plus, Starbucks uses Google-provided wifi so you've already sold your soul in exchange for a couple pennies of bulk traffic. Can't find an ounce of compassion in my heart for that


Yeah, for people without easy wifi connectivity, using a mobile hotspot or tethering to your phone for an hour or two in a parking lot are both extremely reasonable approaches IMO. I just have a normal AT&T smart phone and I got my maps over wifi 2 days ago by tethering for 3 hours.

Whoa serious re 2 hour tethering? Prior to buying the hotspot I’d tethered it for many hours with no luck. My car just yet hadn’t been selected for this and also could afford to be without phone for so long while waiting for Godot...

 

[chillaban]

Whoa serious re 2 hour tethering? Prior to buying the hotspot I’d tethered it for many hours with no luck. My car just yet hadn’t been selected for this and also could afford to be without phone for so long while waiting for Godot...

Yup. Same story here. The first 24 hours after my update to 2018.12, I was tethered the whole time and the car didn't download a single megabyte. It wasn't until magically around 2PM in the afternoon it started downloading at a fairly fast rate, downloaded 5GB by 4PM, and the next morning at 7AM I got the release notes for the map.

I think it was just random chance that you got selected after you bought the hotspot. We call connect our cars to wifi hoping it'd summon the update gods, but in reality it doesn't. Just leaving your hotspot in your car for 10 minutes or so and looking at the data usage will let you know if it's doing anything at all. If it's not, you might as well try again tomorrow because nothing's gonna happen in the immediate future

 

[TaoJones]

Starbucks uses WiFi not LTE do their cost is zero. Haha

Here is your plan B:

It’s impossible to get maps OTA. I emailed Elon directly (have his personal email) and got his executive response guy who wrote a long explanation about how the 5GB per car OTA LTE data would bankrupt the company (he even did the math for me!) so it will never happen.

I finally sucked it up and this week bought/installed an AT&T Mobley hotspot in the car with a $10/mo unlimited data plan!! Google it. It installs (clicks into) the OBDII port of the car (takes 2 seconds) and creates a permanent WiFi hotspot in the car with LTE. 1GB included but on the vehicle plan (not available with other hotspot plans) when you exceed 1GB it just slows the connection rather than charging you exhorbitant fees. My cars downloaded nearly 6GB over the last couple days already! Worth the expense!!! And you’ll be prioritized for other OTA updates too!

They’re out of stock, possibly because I posted about Mobley elsewhere and everyone rushed to buy them. Great deal! Be patient and get Mobley.

I tried this once before and returned the hardware due to repeated false claims from AT&T’s sales/support people. They still owe me $110.

Perhaps things have improved.

Did AT&T raise your base plan $20/mo before allowing you to add the new device (WiFi hotspot/Mobley) for an additional $10/mo?

As a longtime dissatisfied AT&T customer, I can’t quite get to yes for +$34/mo (including taxes) for “unlimited data” split across my cell phone and a new device when “unlimited” is throttled at >22GB/mo.

Now, there’s a point to be made for rationalizing the $420/year additional cost (on top of $115/month in my case) for adding a WiFi hotspot that’s always on - if one can successfully keep dashcam bandwidth to the cloud under a few GB/mo.

I’ve leveraged the tethering (“personal hotspot” which is capped at 10GB/mo ostensibly) to trigger OTA downloads. But no joy yet for the maps. Will try the SBUX thing after getting *.14 - although after hours since the animals that park there care little for the doors and fenders of those adjacent.

Thanks for the ODBII tip - will probably do this if the numbers ever make sense - if for no other reason than to have the dashcam cloud functionality and a shot at getting updates in a timely manner instead of months later - especially when these are in part to fix long-broken features (see Tunein podcasts and media management in general).

 

[MelaniainLA]

I tried this once before and returned the hardware due to repeated false claims from AT&T’s sales/support people. They still owe me $110.

Perhaps things have improved.

Did AT&T raise your base plan $20/mo before allowing you to add the new device (WiFi hotspot/Mobley) for an additional $10/mo?

As a longtime dissatisfied AT&T customer, I can’t quite get to yes for +$34/mo (including taxes) for “unlimited data” split across my cell phone and a new device when “unlimited” is throttled at >22GB/mo.

Now, there’s a point to be made for rationalizing the $420/year additional cost (on top of $115/month in my case) if one can successfully keep dashcam bandwidth to the cloud under a few GB/mo.

I’ve leveraged the tethering (“personal hotspot” which is capped at 10GB/mo ostensibly) to trigger OTA downloads. But no joy yet for the maps. Will try the SBUX thing after getting *.14 - although after hours since the animals that park there care little for the doors and fenders of those adjacent.

Thanks for the ODBII tip - will probably do this if the numbers ever make sense.

I use Verizon for voice. My AT&T plan is a stand-alone Mobley (OBDII WiFi LTE hotspot) -- $100 for the device and $10/mo for data... that's it... again that $10 is just 1GB at LTE speeds but for Tesla WiFi is Wifi, so I might get really large downloads a little slowly, but at least it's costing me pennies! haha.

 

[TaoJones]

I use Verizon for voice. My AT&T plan is a stand-alone Mobley (OBDII WiFi LTE hotspot) -- $100 for the device and $10/mo for data... that's it... again that $10 is just 1GB at LTE speeds but for Tesla WiFi is Wifi, so I might get really large downloads a little slowly, but at least it's costing me pennies! haha.

Thanks for the additional info. I remember trying to find a stand-alone solution and couldn’t touch 5GB for under $50/mo - so please bear with me as I try to clarify:

As you exceed 1GB LTE (which will appear as WiFi to the car - that part I get), as we will for the maps data or any kind of month’s worth of dashcam bandwidth, is additional traffic throttled at no additional charge *OR* will AT&T hammer you for ridiculous per GB charges in excess of that first 1GB?

 

[ALLMYNE]

I was on the phone with T support the other day while traveling asking if I could get the map update pushed to my X running 2018.12........the kind rep explained that they are rolling it out geographically starting in CA 1st.......not sure if anyone east of CA has received it yet.......if not then that may be the case.......also I recall the rep stating around 5k cars per week get the update so it will take close to 6 months for a complete rollout

 

[David29]

Starbucks uses WiFi not LTE do their cost is zero. Haha

Here is your plan B:

It’s impossible to get maps OTA. I emailed Elon directly (have his personal email) and got his executive response guy who wrote a long explanation about how the 5GB per car OTA LTE data would bankrupt the company (he even did the math for me!) so it will never happen.

I finally sucked it up and this week bought/installed an AT&T Mobley hotspot in the car with a $10/mo unlimited data plan!! Google it. It installs (clicks into) the OBDII port of the car (takes 2 seconds) and creates a permanent WiFi hotspot in the car with LTE. 1GB included but on the vehicle plan (not available with other hotspot plans) when you exceed 1GB it just slows the connection rather than charging you exhorbitant fees. My cars downloaded nearly 6GB over the last couple days already! Worth the expense!!! And you’ll be prioritized for other OTA updates too!

They’re out of stock, possibly because I posted about Mobley elsewhere and everyone rushed to buy them. Great deal! Be patient and get Mobley.

Does the Mobley work when the car is parked? That is, does it get power from the OBDII port even when the car is off? My experience is that all but one of the updates I have received over the past 3 years seem to have arrived overnight, because I see the notification on the morning. (There was one exception when a notice was posted in the daytime.) That seemed to make sense because network traffic would be lower in the night (and possibly cheaper for Tesla). So, if the Mobley only works when the car is operating, and you are getting your updates, I wonder if they are being downloaded during the day and my theory was incorrect....

 

[Shateam]

I was on the phone with T support the other day while traveling asking if I could get the map update pushed to my X running 2018.12........the kind rep explained that they are rolling it out geographically starting in CA 1st.......not sure if anyone east of CA has received it yet.......if not then that may be the case.......also I recall the rep stating around 5k cars per week get the update so it will take close to 6 months for a complete rollout

I've seen videos of Tesla owners in NJ demoing the maps update so I don't think that's the case. There are a few videos here on the forum from owners outside of CA. I don't doubt that it could take up to 6 months (though I'm just guessing here).

 

[MelaniainLA]

Does the Mobley work when the car is parked? That is, does it get power from the OBDII port even when the car is off? My experience is that all but one of the updates I have received over the past 3 years seem to have arrived overnight, because I see the notification on the morning. (There was one exception when a notice was posted in the daytime.) That seemed to make sense because network traffic would be lower in the night (and possibly cheaper for Tesla). So, if the Mobley only works when the car is operating, and you are getting your updates, I wonder if they are being downloaded during the day and my theory was incorrect....

Yes. Mobley has a setting (not default) where it will never turn off after the car is off. It continues to draw power creating a perpetual hotspot in the car. Nice eh?

 

[ny3ranger]

Can I ask why people don’t use their phone as a WiFi hotspot for the car to connect to? I read in the model s thread that someone is paying for a mifi connected to the ODB2 port and paying for the data. I just connect my phone. I have T-Mobile so after 28 gigs I will get throttled for the month. I think it’s faster and cheaper to just pay for a few gigs then go through all the trouble of looking for WiFi.

Those days are over. See the email response I got from Tesla executive team:

“Sorry to hear that you are having trouble getting the new maps update pushed to your vehicle! Definitely want you to get updates when they become available, however, it is not feasible or sustainable for us to push map updates over LTE due to the costs Tesla would incur as a result. Map files are multiple gigabytes in size.

Similar to your expensive data plan, Tesla also has to pay for the LTE connection in your vehicle, thus we cannot offer this option. There are many owners who request this, and if we obliged then you can possibly imagine the exponential costs we would incur as a result.

Similarly, we cannot offer service center WiFi because we have to use the connections therein for local and remote service. As such, allowing customers to download map updates via this option would slow down the entire network within the service center, overloading bandwidth and preventing resolution of other customer issues.

Lastly, there are currently 200,000 vehicles that could hypothetically receive LTE map updates. Imagining it would cost Tesla $10 minimum per map update via LTE, which would cost approximately $2,000,000; you can quickly see why this would be problematic for our future as a business.

The best existing option may be for you connect at a Starbucks if you don’t have any other convenient method of connecting your Tesla to WiFi. I regret that we cannot provide your desired resolution, but I hope the information provided herein helps clarify our position on this matter.

Best,

Scott McCarthy | Executive Care
12832 Frontrunner Blvd | Draper, UT 84020

“

 

[MelaniainLA]

Can I ask why people don’t use their phone as a WiFi hotspot for the car to connect to? I read in the model s thread that someone is paying for a mifi connected to the ODB2 port and paying for the data. I just connect my phone. I have T-Mobile so after 28 gigs I will get throttled for the month. I think it’s faster and cheaper to just pay for a few gigs then go through all the trouble of looking for WiFi.

Here’s the problem: most people need their phones. So if my phone is in my car to create a hotspot, I’ll be phone-less at home or at work. I bought ATT Mobley and got the maps immediately! Best $10/mo ever. Have 2 Teslas parked side by side so they share the WiFi! Worth $10/mo to not be without my phone.

 

[David29]

Here’s the problem: most people need their phones. So if my phone is in my car to create a hotspot, I’ll be phone-less at home or at work. I bought ATT Mobley and got the maps immediately! Best $10/mo ever. Have 2 Teslas parked side by side so they share the WiFi! Worth $10/mo to not be without my phone.

Plus, my recollection is that using your phone as a WiFi hotspot depletes the battery rather quickly. And since the 12 V charger and USB ports are not energized when the car is off, leaving your phone in the car when it is parked and with the phone operating as a hotspot would not seem to work for very long.....Or am i wrong on that?

 

[ny3ranger]

Here’s the problem: most people need their phones. So if my phone is in my car to create a hotspot, I’ll be phone-less at home or at work. I bought ATT Mobley and got the maps immediately! Best $10/mo ever. Have 2 Teslas parked side by side so they share the WiFi! Worth $10/mo to not be without my phone.

I just turn my hotspot on when I am driving.

 

[MelaniainLA]

I just turn my hotspot on when I am driving.

I thought it doesn’t download maps or firmware while driving even when on WiFi. Any truth to that??