Tesla Owners Can Edit Maps to Improve Summon Routes

[MP3Mike]

Doesn't make sense to pay for google tiles but use Valhalla as routing engine.

How do you know that? How much does Google charge for routing services vs. just displaying map tiles? Does the Google routing engine let them do what they need to with Supercharger routing?

 

[vespax]

I've tried searching by can't find the answer -- how do you map an uncovered (open-air) ramp (currently set as a Service Road) that goes from a ground-level road to the 2nd-floor rooftop parking area? It isn't an embankment or a bridge, is it? The OSM Editor complains when I mark a parking area as Multilevel saying "Multilevel Parking Garage crosses Service Road" and asks me to add a bridge or tunnel. Thanks in advance!

You are seeking the level tag, which can be used for ways such as service roads and parking aisles. Key:level - OpenStreetMap Wiki

I think sometimes you can ignore the warnings. My parking lot at work has a pedestrian path cross a parking lane or driveway and it gives a warning and suggests a bridge or tunnel but it looks like professionals mapped out the lot. They mapped each individual tree in the landscaping area, etc. And there really is a pedestrian crossing going through the parking way.

Key:crossing - OpenStreetMap Wiki

I'm pretty sure OSM is used for NoA lane guidance because bad lane choices during NoA always correlate with incorrect lane tagging in the OSM data, e.g. lane count doesn't match reality. At least I've never found a place where they don't correlate so far. Any time NoA chooses the wrong lane, there is a matching segment of road in OSM with mismatched lane tags.

Do you have an example of the ways in question? I'd like to test in my area.

 

[vespax]

How do you know that? How much does Google charge for routing services vs. just displaying map tiles? Does the Google routing engine let them do what they need to with Supercharger routing?

I don't know for sure but it does seem like an odd mix of services. And since v9 the maps display has been really ugly compared to before (my opinion). The roads a a mess of grey lines that are hard to distinguish from other types of roads.

Google map prices

 

[eli_]

Display is google. At least in Colorado where I live. Doesn't make sense to pay for google tiles but use Valhalla as routing engine. Especially if you can make the display much better looking with OSM. The current road display is painful on the eyes.

The car's logs don't lie though, I can't imagine why they are running Valhalla if they're not using it for routing. Google isn't going to do offline routing for them, and the car can route just fine while offline, it only loses access to POI search and traffic weights. I think the Google credit is just for aerial tiles and POI data.

Do you have an example of the ways in question? I'd like to test in my area.

For example, there's a random segment of highway here that has a right-turn restriction in OSM when no such restriction exists, and sure enough anytime NoA travels that length of road, it suddenly wants to jump out of the lane, when there is no restriction.

 

[vespax]

The car's logs don't lie though, I can't imagine why they are running Valhalla if they're not using it for routing. Google isn't going to do offline routing for them, and the car can route just fine while offline, it only loses access to POI search and traffic weights. I think the Google credit is just for aerial tiles and POI data.

Open google maps on your phone, look at a shopping mall parking aisles. Then look on your cars display. It's not OSM, it matches Google. I understand why they use Valhalla for navigation, because they can tweak it for their needs. But the display is ugly google, which is weird to me.

 

[MP3Mike]

I don't know for sure but it does seem like an odd mix of services. And since v9 the maps display has been really ugly compared to before (my opinion). The roads a a mess of grey lines that are hard to distinguish from other types of roads.

Google map prices

Well we know that before the switch to OSM and Valhalla Tesla used Navigon for routing. So they have always had two different services.

 

[eli_]

Open google maps on your phone, look at a shopping mall parking aisles. Then look on your cars display. It's not OSM, it matches Google. I understand why they use Valhalla for navigation, because they can tweak it for their needs. But the display is ugly google, which is weird to me.

You're right it's probably Google Maps for the visual tiles. There's been times where I traveled for a long time with no cellular connectivity and eventually it runs outside the range of the cached tiles. If you start navigation, it will display the highlighted path over a blank map, until connectivity is restored.

For V9 (and earlier for the Model 3), they started de-saturating all the map colors and everything else in the UI. It's just the UX design, maybe it's to make the display less distracting, only the important bits are highlighted in blue, and everything else is just shades of gray.

 

[Ptheven]

I think they use OSM as a temporary solution until they figure out how to recognize and use street signs.

Good luck, thanks to MobileEye's ridiculous patent.

Software patents make baby Jebus cry.

 

[KarenRei]

Am I the only one who's disappointed by this possibility? Here I was thinking that my Tesla was actually learning

No part of any company's vision system learns in realtime. This is a common misconception.

and using it's vision system to navigate the parking lot

It is. But it still needs to know where to go. How well do you think you would navigate if you were dropped in an unfamiliar place and only able to see the things immediately around you? That's why people use maps. And that's why the car uses them if available, and if not, is more likely to take a suboptimal route.

And just like if you had a map that was bad it would likely lead you astray, the same applies to a car relying on a bad section of Open Streetmap.

... How is this any different than others using LIDAR?

This is a joke, right? In what way is a map like LIDAR?

The point cloud is built by the vision system. Believe it or not, Open Street Maps does not offer a "high resolution realtime point cloud" datastream.

 

[derotam]

I can say that at least for one area near me, the OSM data was not the same as what is shown on the display. The map in the display in my car shows some roads that OSM does not...Well did not..I went ahead and added them into OSM.

There was also a road that Tesla kept trying to make me go the wrong way on, so I fixed that in OSM but I don't that is going to make a difference when I do that route again this afternoon.

 

[Darmie]

Working on a few things at our prien lake mall Lake Charles. My first test there the car drove up on the small curb grass area. Now this is all becoming clear. Can't wait to try it out when I have the parking lot near the back completed. Thanks OP for an amazing find.

 

[Runt8]

I don't get why people think this is violating the spirit of FSD. How do you think Navigation works? They're using Google Maps and ALWAYS WILL. The software can't plan a route with no knowledge of where the roads are. What Musk objects to is using map data to define what's right in front of you, e.g., stop signs, stop lights, or construction zones since those things can move or be out of order. A parked car in a lot has a blocked view. Yes, a human walking up to their car can look around and see how to get out of the lot (usually) but try doing that while sitting in the drivers' seat. Thus, the need for some kind of map to plan a route to the summoner.

I see what your saying and I suppose this does fall more in the navigation category than using HD maps to determine driving behavior.

 

[Stellavator]

There is more to this story than updating OSM.

I go to a gym that has a private road and parking lot. Both google maps, Tesla nav screen, and OSM show this as being private, with no public road designation or name. But summon would not work. When I read this thread, I assumed it was erroneous lines on OsM. I went into OSM and found that the route was incorrect and updated the entire parking lot. All correct now.

However, now, when I try to summon, the app shows me a nice route, but overlayed on top is still the outline of an incorrectly placed public road. Summon will not work (lights flash and the car just stops before it even moves), I assume because it thinks it is a public road, even though I corrected the OSM map, and neither the OSM or google maps ever showed a public road there.

there is another database that is being utilized here. And it is wrong. How do we find out what the source is?

 

[Rihards]

Hi all Tesla owners, and a very big, warm welcome to the OpenStreetMap community.
As an OSM community member, I have no idea about Tesla's OSM usage beyond what's in this thread, but a few tips about the map part.

First - a massive thank you for improving OSM. This being an open dataset/project (sometimes simplisticly called "Wikipedia or maps"), all contributions are highly valued. Your improvements don't go to just Tesla's, they go to Geocaching maps, Facebook maps, Strava maps (except slippy maps on mobile devices), maps.me and OsmAnd mobile applications, many (most?) hiking mapping services, PokemonGO map and many, many other locations.
One edit, and you have improved the map for dozens if not hundreds of websites, mobile applications and other services. How cool is that?

Second - my take on a few OSM-related topics from this thread.

1. ratsbew wrote: "I use "driveway" to connect the street to the lot"
This is not terribly incorrect, but "serviceway" (maybe called just "service road"?) might be a better fit for that segment. Just a nitpick

2. Armee_1 wrote: "The underlying maps are assumed to be by mapbox"
MapBox started out using purely OSM data. While they might have mixed in some other data sources, I believe it's mostly OSM in the USA, at least. If so, street routing could also use OSM data, and a few posters have noted that their edits to streets in OSM have resulted in improvements for routing. Note that displayed maps and background routing service have no requirement to use the same data source, and based on the comments here, tiles are not from OSM (unfortunately, for now?).

3. sheamurai shared images of their OSM improvements - looks great, thank you for contributing
A tiny nitpick - it's better to avoid adding names like "parking" or "driveway" - those are not real names of the entities. In OSM, tags are used to classify objects (like those parking isle, serviceway and other classifications you all used). Names would only be the real names, like street names.
On this topic, if somebody decides to add a restaurant, tag (classify) it as a restaurant, but do not append "restaurant" in the name - that's redundant and considered not the best approach in OSM. Same goes for shops and other things.

Oh, and talking about shops, pubs, restaurants... You can add all that in OSM and get it in all those websites, mobile applications and other map data consumers in one go. Consider maps.me/OsmAnd (offline maps, including routing) for your vacation trips, you might be pleasantly surprised by the coverage in a random place in Europe or Asia

Maybe drop by a mappy hour in a nearby pub or another event (see the event calendar at OpenStreetMap Wiki)... OSM is the "nicest" map in the world, and the community is generally very friendly, too.

Another very warm welcome and happy mapping.

 

[eli_]

There is more to this story than updating OSM.

I go to a gym that has a private road and parking lot. Both google maps, Tesla nav screen, and OSM show this as being private, with no public road designation or name. But summon would not work. When I read this thread, I assumed it was erroneous lines on OsM. I went into OSM and found that the route was incorrect and updated the entire parking lot. All correct now.

However, now, when I try to summon, the app shows me a nice route, but overlayed on top is still the outline of an incorrectly placed public road. Summon will not work (lights flash and the car just stops before it even moves), I assume because it thinks it is a public road, even though I corrected the OSM map, and neither the OSM or google maps ever showed a public road there.

there is another database that is being utilized here. And it is wrong. How do we find out what the source is?

You're talking about the map shown within the Tesla app? That is whatever the phone's native map control is, so if it's iOS you're seeing Apple Maps, if it's Android then its Google Maps.

 

[brkaus]

So does speed limit info come from this as well? And, if so, how real time would it be?

 

[Genedr]

However, is it still limited to PRIVATE parking or other PRIVATE roadways?
We are in a gated residential community but the summon feature recognizes it as a public (not private) roadway, which is true.
Asking for my Model 3.

 

[gmtom1]

I'm trying to create an account, but it's throwing an error, saying I need to contact the webmaster? Is this normal behavior or is it swamped because of all us Tesla owners trying to update?

 

[Stellavator]

You're talking about the map shown within the Tesla app? That is whatever the phone's native map control is, so if it's iOS you're seeing Apple Maps, if it's Android then its Google Maps.

I was all set to tell you that you are wrong, and I checked on my google maps and Apple maps (I have an iPhone). Lo and behold, you're right! Its Apple maps! Google doesn't show this road, but Apple maps does, and exactly like i see it on the Tesla app when attempting to summon.

so my question now is, would it work if I were using a different phone? Does the failure have to do with the map the app is using on my phone? If not, then there is still a database, maybe the same one Apple maps uses, that is showing this as a public road and blocking summon onboard the Tesla.

 

[S3XY]

So I finally had a chance to test out Smart Summon after taking the time to update the parking lot where I work. Summon had failed the few times I tried it previously but I'm happy to report it worked perfectly today. In previous attempts it would draw a route directly to where I was sumonning to even though it would have to drive over islands to go that way. Today it routed around the islands and traversed the path perfectly! Thanks OP for bringing this to our attention. I also took the time to update several other parking lots near me. I may never use it at those locations but someone probably will benefit from it.