Navigation System Errors: nonsense routes!

I just filed a bug report because of this. The nav wanted me to go to a supercharger 60 miles north in order to go directly west. The worst part of it was there is a supercharger directly on the west route! The nav should have taken me from was Collinsville il, to chesterfild mo(supercharger), then to columbia mo. Instead it wanted me to go to Springfeild IL, then cut across back into mo..

I've had the same craziness. It will take the longer route to hit three SCs, even though there is a shorter route that also has three SCs. Go figure.

I just wish they would use TomTom populated with a bunch of SuC POIs and be done with it! MW

martinwinlow said:

I just wish they would use TomTom populated with a bunch of SuC POIs and be done with it! MW

Click to expand...

Or just use google maps, its already in the car and it works on my phone without a problem.

martinwinlow said:

I just wish they would use TomTom populated with a bunch of SuC POIs and be done with it! MW

Click to expand...

Can TomTom use optional waypoints for routing? I didn't think it could.

Senseless Supercharger Routing

Admittedly I don't take a ton of road trips using the Supercharging routing. Admittedly I haven't kept up with TMC in the last few months. So perhaps this is "normal" but here we go...

Driving on a road trip from Seattle to Central Oregon this weekend I had planned on skipping the Centralia Supercharger and heading right to Woodburn which was within range and 20% of battery to spare. (you don't need to know the Northwest for the following...)

Having done this drive before I knew I didn't need to stop in Centralia. In fact, when I hit trip overview it said to stop in Centralia and "0 min charging required." Odd.

So I drove past Centralia. About 40 miles past it on the way to Woodburn I changed the Nav destination to the Woodburn Supercharger (not my final destination in Central Oregon). I was SHOCKED to see it telling me to turn around, drive 40 miles back to Centralia, charge for 10 minutes, re-drive that 40 miles on the way to Woodburn. That made NO sense (screenshot 1)

So on the Nav I hit "remove all charging stops" and sure enough it said I could drive the 82 miles to Woodburn and arrive with 19% battery life (screenshot 2). So I could drive straight and arrive with 19% battery or I could drive an extra 80 miles and charge for 10 minutes to reach the same destination. Odd. Needless to say, I rolled into Woodburn with 60 miles of range left.

It was funny, this "issue" caused me to wonder what the car/Tesla knew that I didn't! I was actually considering calling Tesla to find out if there was something wrong with the Woodburn Superchargers! All in all, I ignored the Nav and arrived fine. Is the Supercharging routing normally this odd?

I kind of think it is estimating these stops so that you arrive while still in the 'green' on your battery. or if you run into snow and a headwind you will still be ok

It's Beta, I've had instances such as yours as well as the NAV telling me to stop at a SC for 0 min charge.

You have to wonder if the people who lost their job at "Apple Maps" are now working on this.

It is called BETA for a reason. Tesla will fix it and when they do we can be reasonably certain it will be fixed correctly. I am glad they put it out in Beta format. But I would not expect it to be perfect.

Tesla will get these logic issues solved in another release or two. I think part of the problem is that Tesla is taking you to the closest supercharger to top up before continuing the route -- and they need to change the logic to the lower travel and charging time, not just the closest Superchargers.

I haven't done a road trip since this feature was added, but I have played around with putting in a few destinations to see what it does, here's an example:

From my house (near Carefree, AZ), the 3 closest Superchargers are almost the same distance away:
1) Cordes Junction -- 52 miles to the north.
2) Wickenburg -- 54 miles to the west.
3) Buckeye - 56 miles to the southwest

When doing a destination in San Diego or LA, it almost always routes me to the Cordes Junction Supercharger first, then to Wickenburg. That adds 80 extra miles to the trip (going 40 miles out of the way, then doubling back). Cordes is also a ~1500 foot elevation gain from my house -- while Wickenburg is a 200 foot drop, which means that I can reach Wickenburg using less energy than Cordes.

I've seen crazy suggestions from this feature, and generally regard it as being about as useful as a chocolate teapot. It's all very well using the "beta" label, but this is nowhere near the required level of quality for that. From a QA testing point of view "ensure that the system never suggests a 0 minute stop" must be just about the first thing you'd check.

My guess (and it's a total guess) is that the system has been written so that when you enter a destination it checks to see if you have enough charge for a round trip to and from that point. If you do it doesn't try to route via superchargers at all. But if you don't it invokes the "route via superchagers" logic which then builds a trip itinerary for a one-way journey. This confusion between round-trip and single leg is what leads to crazy thinngs like 0 minute stops, and to it starting off by sending you to a supercharger in the opposite direction from your destination even though you don't need the charge.

In the absence of multi-stop trip planning it's pretty useless anyway. If you can't actually tell the car what your total journey looks like how can it hope to come up with a suitable charging strategy for you?

I believe this beta release is all about the "end range anxiety" marketing to get ... "the public" to relax. The last road trip we took had the above "errors" or shall we say, differences of opinion about priorities. Whenever the ending charge estimate fell below 20%, these weird things would start showing up, like routing back to a supercharger when you actually have plenty to get to the next one.

So if your goal is truly no range anxiety, you could just completely rely on the Nav. Then of course your schedule will be completely shot and you'll be doing a hell of a lot more driving. But no range anxiety. I accept it as a step along the path, with improvements coming as they must. I normally have a bit of a daily plan for long trips anyway, so I only use the nav to indicate my next planned stop. And I have no range anxiety, already. Viva progress!

I think beta software should go to beta testers willing to test it, not force it upon everyone.

I think Tesla Motors could maybe do a better job about emphasizing the beta-ness of the SC routing.

I was recently going from Cincinnati to Columbus after having just stopped for a Supercharge. I got about 10 miles out of Cincinnati and the nav was trying to re-route me back for additional charge (after telling me I had enough before I left the Cincy SC).

This occurred at the exact moment I was on a interchange and could have really been discombobulating. Fortunately, I had seen it before and it only took a couple of seconds to figure out what was happening. (Maybe I drive a little heavy-footed, but not that bad.)

Barry said:

I think beta software should go to beta testers willing to test it, not force it upon everyone.

Click to expand...

All software releases do go to the beta tester group before general release. I've no idea how this got through that process with such crass flaws in it.

Over the last few releases there has been a subtle but worrying trend with features:

Historically we got features when they were finished and worked properly. That was great, but often frustratingly slow.
Then in 6.0 we got a couple of features in beta state, but they were turned off by default (traffic avoidance in the nav, and smart pre-conditioning). I tried both at a time convenient to me, discovered that one doesn't work for me and turned it off.
And now we're getting beta features that are enabled by default (and in fact which cannot be turned off). There is no way to prevent the car from suggesting moronic supercharger diversions when you enter a destination (is there?).

For a long time I've used the "dad test" with technology, including with this car. The test is "would I lend it to my dad for the weekend after only 30 minutes of handover, knowing that he would be relying on it working properly?". For a long time with the Model S the answer was "I'm not sure". The trip energy features in v6.1 made it a definite "yes". And now with this silly supercharger routing nonsense it is a definite "no". I simply wouldn't trust it not to send him on a wild goose chase if he went on a long journey.

Ugliest1 said:

I believe this beta release is all about the "end range anxiety" marketing to get ... "the public" to relax. The last road trip we took had the above "errors" or shall we say, differences of opinion about priorities. Whenever the ending charge estimate fell below 20%, these weird things would start showing up, like routing back to a supercharger when you actually have plenty to get to the next one.

So if your goal is truly no range anxiety, you could just completely rely on the Nav. Then of course your schedule will be completely shot and you'll be doing a hell of a lot more driving. But no range anxiety. I accept it as a step along the path, with improvements coming as they must. I normally have a bit of a daily plan for long trips anyway, so I only use the nav to indicate my next planned stop. And I have no range anxiety, already. Viva progress!

Click to expand...

What I cannot fathom is why the really useful trip energy predictor (which is probably the single best software feature added to the car since I've owned it) in v6.1 got no fanfare at all, but the useless range assurance feature that appears to have been written by an intern one afternoon and which has in reality made me less confident when taking the car on a long journey got all this PR and fanfare.

mgboyes said:

There is no way to prevent the car from suggesting moronic supercharger diversions when you enter a destination (is there?).

Click to expand...

Trip planner can be disabled in settings> apps>nav, but it will not add any charging stops and only route direct.

I have it disabled at this point, preferring to figure it out on my own. I tend to charge at non-superchargers a lot more than others.

Its bad really, I have submitted a Bug report for it at least 4 times as of now.

For beta software there is normally a formal process for providing feedback or bug reports. Is there a formal process for reporting feedback to Tesla?