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Tesla’s response to getting maps updates over LTE or service center WiFi

121 points by jijojv 9y ago

taneq 9y ago
The second comment seems pretty reasonable: Set your phone as a wifi hotspot for the car to use. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to balk at spending $2mil to push a huge data blob out over a free connection that was probably originally scoped purely for small (<100mb) firmware updates.
- arthurcolle 9y ago
  couldnt they set up their own cdn or is redistribution of google maps cache files disallowed as a result of the existing Terms of Service?
  - voltagex_ 9y ago
    Even at the corporate tier there's a whole lot of restrictions on caching Google Maps. I suspect someone at Tesla could make a call and get that sorted out, though.
    - Reason077 9y ago
      Tesla's new navigation system no longer uses Google Maps. It's now a vector based system using Mapbox data and Valhalla routing. Hence the large size of this update: the entire base map is now stored in the car rather than downloading local tiles as needed.
      - voltagex_ 9y ago
        That's a big win for Mapbox - good on them.
- kelnage 9y ago
  Obviously they wouldn’t have to spend that much. Right now the majority of their customers get these updates via WiFi - so it would just be a matter of finding out which vehicles were sufficiently out of date and only sending them the data.
  - taneq 9y ago
    Fair point, either it's affecting a lot of people or it's not going to cost much to push over LTE for the few remaining ones, they need to pick one. It sounds like the other half of the issue is that there's no way to force the car to check for updates. That should be quick to add... in the next update (heh). Edit: The original poster on the Tesla forum did say they usually got their updates a couple of weeks after they were released. Maybe, to get around this very problem, the car waits for a while in hope of a friendly WiFi connection before resorting to LTE?
  - usrusr 9y ago
    Once it works without Wi-Fi, few people will bother too set it up. There are obvious solutions to WiFi-less home parking for a company with their very own charger network, but they take initiative, commitment and acknowledging the problem. I'm pretty sure that pointing out all the ways of how a given happy path solution won't work for everybody is not how you make a career at a company like Tesla.
- brandon272 9y ago
  The Tesla employee ought to have suggested the WiFi hotspot idea. Telling the guy to leech off a Starbucks connection is just weird. And the explanation about "imagining" how much an LTE update costs Tesla is also weird. Why not offer optional LTE map updates for an additional fee? I guess I hadn't thought much about how Tesla pushes software and map updates. WiFi makes sense but I would assume it doesn't work well for some people. I know my WiFi signal in my garage and driveway is quite poor due to the architecture of my house and I assume the large number of WiFi networks in my neighbourhood. And as far as the reasoning for why they can't offer it at their service centre -- seems like an issue easily solved by a QoS feature on a router.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Here's another thought - if you think Tesla is paying retail data rates for 200,000 LTE connections, you're likely mistaken.
  - joecool1029 9y ago
    >Here's another thought - if you think Tesla is paying retail data rates for 200,000 LTE connections, you're likely mistaken. I wouldn't be so sure of that. Operators can and do gouge for data when they know they can get away with it, including rates over what retail would typically be.[1][2] These are large file downloads and you can best believe operators are not going to give 'bulk discount rates' just to have their network slowed down every time Tesla pushes an update. [1] https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60000987609.pdf https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60000987609.pdf [2] https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521151798.pdf https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521151798.pdf
    - improbable22 9y ago
      Surely Tesla could get great price for bandwidth at 3am.
- babaganoosh89 9y ago
  From the comments in the link, it seems like map downloads are triggered randomly. Someone left their phone in their car for 5 days but it didn’t sync.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The second comment seems pretty reasonable: Set your phone as a wifi hotspot for the car to use. You can't trigger the update, so you have to leave your phone with the car (remember that the whole problem here is that parking is too remote from living space to share wifi) for an extended period of time and hope for the update to trigger. And, from the comment on the article page by the author, they've tried that: I have put my phone in hotspot mode for literally 5 days, left it in one car, and connected both cars (at home, just one car at work because my wife works somewhere else) to my iPhone hotspot, leaving me completely phone-less except for once-a-day charging sessions at home. Despite this, because there is NO way to trigger a “guaranteed” maps/nav update (sounds like Elon will only allow triggering firmware updates), I might need to be without my phone for weeks on end.
oferzelig 9y ago
Unbelievable that they advise, in writing, that you park next to a Starbucks. And they're the ones who have a Roadster roaming in space.
- Crosseye_Jack 9y ago
  > Roadster roaming in space. It was the only way to get a decent wifi signal :-p But it’s kind of a shock they don’t offer updates via USB. Throw a digital signature on the download to help against unsigned code, encrypt the contents and restrict access to the download to verified owners if they are worried about offering a download of maps they brought from someone else and have the key delivered to the car via LTE via their already inplace vpn the cars use to phone home to the mothership. Car manufacturers have been offering updates to built in gps devices for years via CD/DVD/USB to none connected cars, kind of a shock that Tesla don’t offer this upgrade method.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    Well, when I look at the automation issues on the Model 3 line, it appears that Tesla has a habit of ignoring the experience of other car manufacturers.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > But it’s kind of a shock they don’t offer updates via USB USB is an attack vector - USB descriptor attacks have been used to hack systems in the past.
hatsunearu 9y ago
Here's a brand new crazy idea: have a local caching server at the Tesla dealership and pump out OTA updates just there? I mean FFS, downloads through a local server over WiFi is gonna be way faster than downloading through the internet over WiFi anyways! And the servers are cheap, not to mention they probably already have spare computing power at a dealership to get this working!
- marcc 9y ago
  The showrooms I know of LA aren’t close enough to where you can park to enable this. They are built in more walkable areas such as outdoor malls.
- endymi0n 9y ago
  Here‘s a better idea: install this „server“ (you‘ll probably not need much more than a Raspberry Pi sized machine) into every Supercharger. Car will have to park there anyway for some significant time, there‘s electricity already and it‘s Tesla property anyway so they don‘t come across as being cheap. Elon, are you listening? :D
  - endymi0n 9y ago
    And thinking twice about it, you won‘t even need Internet at the Supercharger, either. With some clever cryptography and signing, you can use the existing Tesla fleet with the newest updates loaded as a P2P network on wheels... „Want to get the newest maps? Sure, just take a long-distance trip any time soon...“
    - riteshpatel 9y ago
      I like how you think :)
      - jxramos 9y ago
        Indeed, like a useful virus spreading about the Tesla fleet. Nice emanations.
tristanj 9y ago
According to this forum post [0], the Tesla Navigation data is 5-8 GB in size. This is a large file to download over a cellular network, and I can understand why Tesla/Carriers would prefer people download this file over wifi or wired internet. Apple has had a related download policy: they won't let you download major iOS updates over cellular data, and require wifi or USB data cable to install them. I believe Apple does this as a result of carrier pressure, however I don't think Apple has publicly stated this (Apple rarely does so). A lot of people seem to forget that cellular bandwidth is finite, and that wireless congestion is a real problem today. [0] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/firmware-update-2018-12.111854/page-12#post-2651767 https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/firmware-update-2018...
- siwatanejo 9y ago
  Yeah sure. What they really need to do is proper delta-updates, not download the full navigationData file.
  - p49k 9y ago
    While you’re not wrong, it’s not necessarily under Tesla’s control if they can do so (do they build and manage their own map data files?) and even if it was, managing an update that supports delta patches is its own headache that comes with extra engineering and testing costs, so maybe in the end the extra cost would be comparable? We’re only talking about 200k clients here, unlike Google in which each byte of bandwidth reduction is multiplied by hundreds of millions of phones.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      You don't need to build your own files to do a delta. You just take the old file and the new one, and you calculate a binary diff using cperciva's bsdiff or Google's courgette. Then on the car you take the old file and the diff to generate the new file.
      - unwind 9y ago
roflchoppa 9y ago
Just saved cached copies of the updates at the recharge centers. Ask if they wanna run an update then and there. Voila.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Superchargers are not widespread enough, at least in some countries. The closest to Madrid (capital of Spain) is 173km away (107 miles).
Proven 9y ago
Hey, the company is going to hit cash crunch soon, it’s never too early to cut costs.
TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
> 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. Oh come on, even my AU$40 prepaid sim includes gigabytes per month. And which carrier wouldn’t jump at the chance to advertise “We partner with Telsa to provide you unmetered firmware and maps updates, simple set your phone as a wifi hotspot and connect your Tesla to take advantage of this offer”. Telsa might still pay a fee, but it would be a fraction of what you or I would pay for the same amount of quota.
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
If the guy really can't find a Wifi hotspot for his car to connect to, he can get a hotspot and pay for the cell data himself.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  Hard to sympathize with an owner of two Tesla’s complaining his/her pericular edge case is being overlooked. The vast amount of people will be covered with WiFi. The rest of the Teslii owners can buy a cheap WiFi hotspot for a month.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Hard to sympathize with an owner of two Tesla’s complaining his/her pericular edge case is being overlooked. It's not a peculiar edge case; the Tesla rep explicitly notes in the reaponse it's an issue that Tesla has heard about from many owners.
  - Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
    Anyone with on-street parking which isn’t outside their house, or on-street parking but outside an old house with thick walls, also qualifies as this “edge case”. That’s pretty much most of central London and I suspect many other European cities.
kylec 9y ago
It seems like there's a really obvious solution to this problem: why not just allow people to download this update, put it on a USB stick, then plug the USB into the car? For people that don't have/don't want to buy USB sticks, they could have some pre-loaded ones available at service centers. No need to park at a Starbucks, have your customers tether their cars to their phones, or overload the wifi at the service centers.
- argestes 9y ago
  >Why not just allow people to download this update, put it on a USB stick, then plug the USB into the car? I guess a few things: 1- If you give USB to end users to plug it to their cars you eventually going to need to provide some support service for it. If someone has a Tesla that does not make that person who understands about using computers. Tesla cars are still cars. 2- Teslas are cars, again. You can travel to another country with your car. You can put that car in a ship and use it on another continent. (insert Falcon Heavy joke here) As Tesla, the company you still need to provide updates to those intercontinental Teslas.
  - Crosseye_Jack 9y ago
    As I said in and bother comment. Downloads (signed and encrypted to prevent misuse of the contents, I guess they are someone else’s maps unless Tesla is creating their own maps). A small piece of software could be created to “handhold” the user though the process of downloading the update file, format a usb stick and copy the update file to it. Look at the Windows 10 media creation tools as an example of preping a usb stick easily. Once the stick is prepped and inserted into the car, the car should take over and do the rest. Just inform the user that the update is taking place and prompt them once completed that they can remove the stick (when save to do so if they are already on the move) Have the car look for update.img in the root of the usb on insertion, validate the signature of the file, validate the file isn’t a downgrade, decrypt, install and delete the file once completed automatically. Friends and family can also be a source of help to download the file onto a usb stick.
    - 9y ago
mrarjen 9y ago
Maybe support an old school USB stick that let's the user download it on a pc and stick it to their car?
chli 9y ago
Are Tesla not equipped with a USB port ?
noonespecial 9y ago
"We don't want to pay for it, please make Starbucks pay instead. kthanxbye" ??? Can this possibly be the official corporate position? There should be entire 2 semester course in biz school about how to scale without ending up with corporate policies creeping in that are so mind-bendingly stupid that everyone starts wondering if the company leadership is a bunch of 12-year-olds laughing behind a gym somewhere.
- tristanj 9y ago
  Apple doesn't let users download major iOS updates over cellular data, and that's been their official policy for the past decade. Why is it a problem if Tesla does the same thing?
  - sjroot 9y ago
    More specifically, they prevent you from downloading any applications that exceed 100 MB in size via your cellular connection.
    - ade2 9y ago
      Minor correction, it's now 150 mb, since fall 2017.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Why is it a problem if Tesla does the same thing? Because Tesla isn't selling a smartphone that users in places where parking and living space aren't immediately adjacent so as to share a wifi router can reliably be expected to carry into their home, where they can connect to their in-home network, but a car which is a very different device. Also, map data updates are necessary to maintain function, unlike major iOS updates, which provide new function.
deleted 9y ago
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DKnoll 9y ago
Tesla is still more consumer-friendly in this respect than any other car manufacturer I know of. You have to pay for map updates in most other cars... it's not cheap either.
- gopi 9y ago
  yup, its cost around $500 to update in some, crazy!
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Tesla is still more consumer-friendly in this respect than any other car manufacturer I know of. Tesla's the only car manufacturer selling vehicles that supposedly have full autonomy hardware with full autonomy itself a near-future firmware update away. That becomes meaningless hype on a whole new level if the many owners the Tesla rep acknowledges have stated a need for this can get firmware updates but not map updates.
  - DKnoll 9y ago
    They can get map updates for free, all they need is WiFi access... am I missing something here? There is free public WiFi all over. I'm shocked that the complaint comes from the SF area of all places, there is probably a higher density of WiFi there than anywhere else on the planet.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > They can get map updates for free, all they need is WiFi access... am I missing something here? There is free public WiFi all over. The updates can't be triggered by the user, so you have to leave your car somewhere (or your phone in your car) for a extended period of time to hope to get an update. There's also not free public parking everywhere (much less free public parking with WiFi coverage), especially in the urban areas where “my parking is remote from my living space and doesn't share wifi with it” is most likely to be an issue. Also, outside of certain urban areas (and this can still be a problem outside of urban areas) there isn't free public WiFi everywhere.
deleted 9y ago
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jasonlingx 9y ago
Idea - allow any tesla vehicle to download updates from any other nearby tesla vehicle
- DoubleMalt 9y ago
  Cory Doctorow - Eastern Standard Tribe is a must read
schappim 9y ago
This has to be the very definition of a "first world problem".
- mansilladev 9y ago
  Read my mind.
nodesocket 9y ago
This is just not a real problem, seems like entitled complaining. You have two Tesla's but can't find a friend, office, or public WiFi to download the map update? Boo hoo!!
- jwildeboer 9y ago
  Problem is you cannot trigger the download. There’s no update button. You have to get WiFi connected and just wait and hope. The person complaining did try. Made his iPhone a hot spot, put it in the car and left it there for days. But the update wasn’t triggered.
  - stormcrowsx 9y ago
    That should have been the target of his rant not that they won't turn on LTE updates. He comes off sounding like first world problems in the bulk of this article.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> 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. It would be moot if you just charged a premium for LTE maps updates for the subset of customers who need it. Heck, price it right, and it'll probably be profitable, and also make owners happier.
ComSubVie 9y ago
Why aren't they downloading the updates while charging? Shouldn't be too much effort to either install WiFi at the superchargers or run data over the charge cabling. Then maybe just update the "local" map data around the supercharger (the next charger along the route will update the next area; no need to update unused maps). Also I'm wondering why updates are generally fat blobs instead of deltas.
cameldrv 9y ago
Come on Tesla... You should do the following: As suggested by jasonlingx, have cars update each other. If after a few days this doesn't happen, you need another option. You'll have to go negotiate some deals. First, Comcast has an enormous network of wifi hotspots that their customers create. The per-GB price on this should be very low, particularly if you're willing to be throttled. Second, one of the four major carriers should be willing to work out a deal for extremely cheap data if it's at super off-peak hours, say 2-4am, when there is loads of spare capacity.
Garlef 9y ago
The talk of "exponential costs"... but would the increase in cost per user per month not be linear (wrt the numer of users)?
jlgaddis 9y ago
My Harley-Davidson doesn't have Wi-Fi or LTE (SiriusXM is as good as it gets), but it does have a USB port that I can use to install updates (downloaded onto a flash drive). I'm honestly quite surprised that Teslas have both Wi-Fi and LTE but can't be updated via a similar method.
kelnos 9y ago
The suggestion to park at Starbucks is skeezy, but otherwise the response sounds entirely reasonable. Having many cars pull multi-gigabyte updates over LTE would be prohibitively expensive. What Tesla should do is allow people to receive updates at a service center (or at superchargers), either manually from a technician or just automatically in the background with a known Tesla WiFi network that the car knows how to connect to when at a service center. Hell, the service center could even keep cached copies of the downloads locally to speed things up.
FearNotDaniel 9y ago
I have a portable WiFi hotspot that gives me unlimited downloads over LTE for less than €20/mth. I'm sure a Tesla owner can afford that. Problem solved.
kmonsen 9y ago
What most posters here are missing is that you cannot trigger the update in your Tesla so most suggested workarounds will not work. Including the suggested parking outside a Starbucks.
- rightnow 9y ago
  An update for this is on the way very soon. They have already announced that.
jaclaz 9y ago
I don't know in the US, but here in Italy a small 3G/4G modem (capable of creating a Wi-Fi hotspot) costed me[1] less than 50 Euro, complete with the SIM in it, and then the data plan is if I recall correctly something like 8 Euro month for 3 or 4 GB of traffic, and 12-15 for 8-10 GB, but it is not a "subscription" you just "recharge" with a given amount of money and it gets the monthly fee from that (if used). The underground garage may be a problem, but if the car is parked outside, it should work fine. [1] at least lat year, I had the telephone/DSL cable cut and to provide remporarily the connectivity of the office quickly put together a Wi-Fi based on that, that we call in jargon "soapbar", the one I got was a Huawei E5330: https://www.eprice.it/router-wifi-HUAWEI/d-5730696 https://www.eprice.it/router-wifi-HUAWEI/d-5730696
- dx034 9y ago
  But why would you have to buy a 4G router just so that your car can download an update? Sounds needlessly complicated to me. I honestly don't understand why they can't factor in download prices into the price of the car. Having contracts with networks to allow large downloads during certain time windows would probably be close to free (no additional capacity needed in the middle of the night) and would provide a much better experience for the user.
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    >But why would you have to buy a 4G router just so that your car can download an update? Sounds needlessly complicated to me. I perfectly agree with you on the fact that it represents an example of poor (actually extremely poor) management of the customer assistance and that Tesla should have provided quickly (and hopefully politely, avoiding the small economics lesson that sounded - at least to me - a little bit patronizing) a solution to the issue. But I was approaching the issue at a slightly different angle, the OP on the forum has two cars, of a value of nearly or around 200,000 US$. Their income must be proportional to that, the 3G/4G router, might be worth 60-70 US$ if DIY, and possibly 100-150 US$ if having someone configuring it, i.e. a minimal fraction of their income, if I had those two cars and felt the need to have the road maps updated in a timely fashion, I would have first solved the issue. The fact that for a tag price of 80,000-100,000 US$ per each car I would expect not one but two (one under the driver and one under the passenger seat, in case the first one doesn't work) such little modems as a complimentary courtesy by Tesla would be secundary to solving the problem at hand and have those maps updated.
rightnow 9y ago
I dont see the problem here. Park the car at a wifi somewhere, or get an mini usb wifi router. And use the new upcoming feature to request update button. Stop whining.
dawnerd 9y ago
If Tesla supported carplay/android auto it wouldn't be a problem, but no, gotta re-invent car navigation. I've read some people saying it would be impossible because the infotainment system controls everything. Well every car I've been in with carplay also has the native car ui to control stuff so I don't get the problem. Of course it's about control over the whole experience. Can't be giving consumers a choice. Edit: I say this as someone that plans on eventually buying a model s. I’m just waiting for the technology to mature.
- mantas 9y ago
  What? A super expensive high tech luxury car in 2018 still doesn't support carplay/android auto?
martimarkov 9y ago
Or just allow your phone to download the 5GB file using WiFi and the “Tesla update app” and transfer to the car using the same app but connected to the Tesla AP or Bluetooth to enable that AP and connect to it. Seems like a very user friendly solution to me.
dingo_bat 9y ago
Just turn on the fucking wifi hotspot in your cellphone and call it a day! Too much time on this guy's hands.
- JorgeGT 9y ago
  Notice that in the comments they explain that they did exactly this: > I have put my phone in hotspot mode for literally 5 days, left it in one car, and connected both cars (at home, just one car at work because my wife works somewhere else) to my iPhone hotspot, leaving me completely phone-less except for once-a-day charging sessions at home. Despite this, because there is NO way to trigger a “guaranteed” maps/nav update (sounds like Elon will only allow triggering firmware updates), I might need to be without my phone for weeks on end. That’s obviously not a reasonable solution.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    Ah! I neglected to read the comments. That does sound like a stupidly designed system. A button to check for updates should be simple to add. PS: Isn't this a major problem for anybody who lives in an apartment, though?
nsb1 9y ago
It seems like there are so many ways to tackle this problem. Don't like USB? Allow the Tesla app to grab the map updates and then dump them to the car next time it connects. If they're trying to grab the file in one massive 8GB chunk, stop it and grab smaller bits as they can. Hell, bittorrent it from other Teslas while you're sitting in traffic.
gargravarr 9y ago
Two things really struck me here. First, the comments about USB - I can fully understand them. USB has been repeatedly shown to be an insecure medium (pretty much by design, it relies on the device being honest about its intentions) and Tesla is probably justified in not exposing a USB port to the customer. At the same time, it's been proven that Tesla's infotainment (eugh, I hate that word!) system runs Ubuntu, so they should really be publishing the source code for it anyway. Second, if this very large download is really a problem that even service centres can't offer it without affecting their own operational bandwidth, why not install a caching proxy in each service centre? Hardly expensive hardware, an RPi with a USB disk would be enough, then the connected cars can download from the cache instead of straight from Tesla each time? Multiple cars in parallel would not be a problem. As a side note, yes, pushing large downloads over cellular connections are expensive. It suits the carriers to have this model; in the UK, when smartphones first came out, unlimited-data plans were common, but very quickly vanished from the market when the carriers realised how many people would take the offer literally. Even now, the carrier I'm on offers unlimited data on the phone, but has a cap on tethering (it's Android, so I have no idea how it's detectable, but...). Compared to the likes of Apple, who have uncountable millions of devices and could easily lean on carriers to make OTA OS updates free, Tesla are comparatively small fries with less than a million cars on the road. They're mostly propped up by investor funding at the moment and are not even turning a profit (last I heard) yet. Not a good position to be arguing with carriers from. And if Tesla are complaining about their own bandwidth distributing these large updates, they obviously need to talk to someone like Akamai and get their updates onto a CDN.
lazyjones 9y ago
That's a bit strange... It would cost them probably less than $10 per customer to just send everyone an USB stick with this update. Or they could give/lend them to customers at the service centers for free.
stormcrowsx 9y ago
If it's that big a deal just tether it to the phone.

121 points by jijojv 9y ago

The second comment seems pretty reasonable: Set your phone as a wifi hotspot for the car to use. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to balk at spending $2mil to push a huge data blob out over a free connection that was probably originally scoped purely for small (<100mb) firmware updates.

arthurcolle 9y ago
couldnt they set up their own cdn or is redistribution of google maps cache files disallowed as a result of the existing Terms of Service?
- voltagex_ 9y ago
  Even at the corporate tier there's a whole lot of restrictions on caching Google Maps. I suspect someone at Tesla could make a call and get that sorted out, though.
  - Reason077 9y ago
    Tesla's new navigation system no longer uses Google Maps. It's now a vector based system using Mapbox data and Valhalla routing. Hence the large size of this update: the entire base map is now stored in the car rather than downloading local tiles as needed.
    - voltagex_ 9y ago
      That's a big win for Mapbox - good on them.
kelnage 9y ago
Obviously they wouldn’t have to spend that much. Right now the majority of their customers get these updates via WiFi - so it would just be a matter of finding out which vehicles were sufficiently out of date and only sending them the data.
- taneq 9y ago
  Fair point, either it's affecting a lot of people or it's not going to cost much to push over LTE for the few remaining ones, they need to pick one. It sounds like the other half of the issue is that there's no way to force the car to check for updates. That should be quick to add... in the next update (heh). Edit: The original poster on the Tesla forum did say they usually got their updates a couple of weeks after they were released. Maybe, to get around this very problem, the car waits for a while in hope of a friendly WiFi connection before resorting to LTE?
- usrusr 9y ago
  Once it works without Wi-Fi, few people will bother too set it up. There are obvious solutions to WiFi-less home parking for a company with their very own charger network, but they take initiative, commitment and acknowledging the problem. I'm pretty sure that pointing out all the ways of how a given happy path solution won't work for everybody is not how you make a career at a company like Tesla.
brandon272 9y ago
The Tesla employee ought to have suggested the WiFi hotspot idea. Telling the guy to leech off a Starbucks connection is just weird. And the explanation about "imagining" how much an LTE update costs Tesla is also weird. Why not offer optional LTE map updates for an additional fee? I guess I hadn't thought much about how Tesla pushes software and map updates. WiFi makes sense but I would assume it doesn't work well for some people. I know my WiFi signal in my garage and driveway is quite poor due to the architecture of my house and I assume the large number of WiFi networks in my neighbourhood. And as far as the reasoning for why they can't offer it at their service centre -- seems like an issue easily solved by a QoS feature on a router.
FireBeyond 9y ago
Here's another thought - if you think Tesla is paying retail data rates for 200,000 LTE connections, you're likely mistaken.
- joecool1029 9y ago
  >Here's another thought - if you think Tesla is paying retail data rates for 200,000 LTE connections, you're likely mistaken. I wouldn't be so sure of that. Operators can and do gouge for data when they know they can get away with it, including rates over what retail would typically be.[1][2] These are large file downloads and you can best believe operators are not going to give 'bulk discount rates' just to have their network slowed down every time Tesla pushes an update. [1] https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60000987609.pdf https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60000987609.pdf [2] https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521151798.pdf https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521151798.pdf
  - improbable22 9y ago
    Surely Tesla could get great price for bandwidth at 3am.
babaganoosh89 9y ago
From the comments in the link, it seems like map downloads are triggered randomly. Someone left their phone in their car for 5 days but it didn’t sync.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> The second comment seems pretty reasonable: Set your phone as a wifi hotspot for the car to use. You can't trigger the update, so you have to leave your phone with the car (remember that the whole problem here is that parking is too remote from living space to share wifi) for an extended period of time and hope for the update to trigger. And, from the comment on the article page by the author, they've tried that: I have put my phone in hotspot mode for literally 5 days, left it in one car, and connected both cars (at home, just one car at work because my wife works somewhere else) to my iPhone hotspot, leaving me completely phone-less except for once-a-day charging sessions at home. Despite this, because there is NO way to trigger a “guaranteed” maps/nav update (sounds like Elon will only allow triggering firmware updates), I might need to be without my phone for weeks on end.

oferzelig 9y ago

Unbelievable that they advise, in writing, that you park next to a Starbucks. And they're the ones who have a Roadster roaming in space.

Crosseye_Jack 9y ago
> Roadster roaming in space. It was the only way to get a decent wifi signal :-p But it’s kind of a shock they don’t offer updates via USB. Throw a digital signature on the download to help against unsigned code, encrypt the contents and restrict access to the download to verified owners if they are worried about offering a download of maps they brought from someone else and have the key delivered to the car via LTE via their already inplace vpn the cars use to phone home to the mothership. Car manufacturers have been offering updates to built in gps devices for years via CD/DVD/USB to none connected cars, kind of a shock that Tesla don’t offer this upgrade method.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Well, when I look at the automation issues on the Model 3 line, it appears that Tesla has a habit of ignoring the experience of other car manufacturers.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > But it’s kind of a shock they don’t offer updates via USB USB is an attack vector - USB descriptor attacks have been used to hack systems in the past.

hatsunearu 9y ago

Here's a brand new crazy idea: have a local caching server at the Tesla dealership and pump out OTA updates just there? I mean FFS, downloads through a local server over WiFi is gonna be way faster than downloading through the internet over WiFi anyways! And the servers are cheap, not to mention they probably already have spare computing power at a dealership to get this working!

marcc 9y ago
The showrooms I know of LA aren’t close enough to where you can park to enable this. They are built in more walkable areas such as outdoor malls.
endymi0n 9y ago
Here‘s a better idea: install this „server“ (you‘ll probably not need much more than a Raspberry Pi sized machine) into every Supercharger. Car will have to park there anyway for some significant time, there‘s electricity already and it‘s Tesla property anyway so they don‘t come across as being cheap. Elon, are you listening? :D
- endymi0n 9y ago
  And thinking twice about it, you won‘t even need Internet at the Supercharger, either. With some clever cryptography and signing, you can use the existing Tesla fleet with the newest updates loaded as a P2P network on wheels... „Want to get the newest maps? Sure, just take a long-distance trip any time soon...“
  - riteshpatel 9y ago
    I like how you think :)
    - jxramos 9y ago
      Indeed, like a useful virus spreading about the Tesla fleet. Nice emanations.

tristanj 9y ago

According to this forum post [0], the Tesla Navigation data is 5-8 GB in size. This is a large file to download over a cellular network, and I can understand why Tesla/Carriers would prefer people download this file over wifi or wired internet. Apple has had a related download policy: they won't let you download major iOS updates over cellular data, and require wifi or USB data cable to install them. I believe Apple does this as a result of carrier pressure, however I don't think Apple has publicly stated this (Apple rarely does so). A lot of people seem to forget that cellular bandwidth is finite, and that wireless congestion is a real problem today. [0] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/firmware-update-2018-12.111854/page-12#post-2651767 https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/firmware-update-2018...

siwatanejo 9y ago
Yeah sure. What they really need to do is proper delta-updates, not download the full navigationData file.
- p49k 9y ago
  While you’re not wrong, it’s not necessarily under Tesla’s control if they can do so (do they build and manage their own map data files?) and even if it was, managing an update that supports delta patches is its own headache that comes with extra engineering and testing costs, so maybe in the end the extra cost would be comparable? We’re only talking about 200k clients here, unlike Google in which each byte of bandwidth reduction is multiplied by hundreds of millions of phones.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    You don't need to build your own files to do a delta. You just take the old file and the new one, and you calculate a binary diff using cperciva's bsdiff or Google's courgette. Then on the car you take the old file and the diff to generate the new file.
    - unwind 9y ago

roflchoppa 9y ago

Just saved cached copies of the updates at the recharge centers. Ask if they wanna run an update then and there. Voila.

icebraining 9y ago
Superchargers are not widespread enough, at least in some countries. The closest to Madrid (capital of Spain) is 173km away (107 miles).

Proven 9y ago

Hey, the company is going to hit cash crunch soon, it’s never too early to cut costs.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

> 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. Oh come on, even my AU$40 prepaid sim includes gigabytes per month. And which carrier wouldn’t jump at the chance to advertise “We partner with Telsa to provide you unmetered firmware and maps updates, simple set your phone as a wifi hotspot and connect your Tesla to take advantage of this offer”. Telsa might still pay a fee, but it would be a fraction of what you or I would pay for the same amount of quota.

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

If the guy really can't find a Wifi hotspot for his car to connect to, he can get a hotspot and pay for the cell data himself.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago
Hard to sympathize with an owner of two Tesla’s complaining his/her pericular edge case is being overlooked. The vast amount of people will be covered with WiFi. The rest of the Teslii owners can buy a cheap WiFi hotspot for a month.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Hard to sympathize with an owner of two Tesla’s complaining his/her pericular edge case is being overlooked. It's not a peculiar edge case; the Tesla rep explicitly notes in the reaponse it's an issue that Tesla has heard about from many owners.
- Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
  Anyone with on-street parking which isn’t outside their house, or on-street parking but outside an old house with thick walls, also qualifies as this “edge case”. That’s pretty much most of central London and I suspect many other European cities.

kylec 9y ago

It seems like there's a really obvious solution to this problem: why not just allow people to download this update, put it on a USB stick, then plug the USB into the car? For people that don't have/don't want to buy USB sticks, they could have some pre-loaded ones available at service centers. No need to park at a Starbucks, have your customers tether their cars to their phones, or overload the wifi at the service centers.

argestes 9y ago
>Why not just allow people to download this update, put it on a USB stick, then plug the USB into the car? I guess a few things: 1- If you give USB to end users to plug it to their cars you eventually going to need to provide some support service for it. If someone has a Tesla that does not make that person who understands about using computers. Tesla cars are still cars. 2- Teslas are cars, again. You can travel to another country with your car. You can put that car in a ship and use it on another continent. (insert Falcon Heavy joke here) As Tesla, the company you still need to provide updates to those intercontinental Teslas.
- Crosseye_Jack 9y ago
  As I said in and bother comment. Downloads (signed and encrypted to prevent misuse of the contents, I guess they are someone else’s maps unless Tesla is creating their own maps). A small piece of software could be created to “handhold” the user though the process of downloading the update file, format a usb stick and copy the update file to it. Look at the Windows 10 media creation tools as an example of preping a usb stick easily. Once the stick is prepped and inserted into the car, the car should take over and do the rest. Just inform the user that the update is taking place and prompt them once completed that they can remove the stick (when save to do so if they are already on the move) Have the car look for update.img in the root of the usb on insertion, validate the signature of the file, validate the file isn’t a downgrade, decrypt, install and delete the file once completed automatically. Friends and family can also be a source of help to download the file onto a usb stick.
  - 9y ago

mrarjen 9y ago

Maybe support an old school USB stick that let's the user download it on a pc and stick it to their car?

chli 9y ago

Are Tesla not equipped with a USB port ?

noonespecial 9y ago

"We don't want to pay for it, please make Starbucks pay instead. kthanxbye" ??? Can this possibly be the official corporate position? There should be entire 2 semester course in biz school about how to scale without ending up with corporate policies creeping in that are so mind-bendingly stupid that everyone starts wondering if the company leadership is a bunch of 12-year-olds laughing behind a gym somewhere.

tristanj 9y ago
Apple doesn't let users download major iOS updates over cellular data, and that's been their official policy for the past decade. Why is it a problem if Tesla does the same thing?
- sjroot 9y ago
  More specifically, they prevent you from downloading any applications that exceed 100 MB in size via your cellular connection.
  - ade2 9y ago
    Minor correction, it's now 150 mb, since fall 2017.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Why is it a problem if Tesla does the same thing? Because Tesla isn't selling a smartphone that users in places where parking and living space aren't immediately adjacent so as to share a wifi router can reliably be expected to carry into their home, where they can connect to their in-home network, but a car which is a very different device. Also, map data updates are necessary to maintain function, unlike major iOS updates, which provide new function.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

DKnoll 9y ago

Tesla is still more consumer-friendly in this respect than any other car manufacturer I know of. You have to pay for map updates in most other cars... it's not cheap either.

gopi 9y ago
yup, its cost around $500 to update in some, crazy!
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Tesla is still more consumer-friendly in this respect than any other car manufacturer I know of. Tesla's the only car manufacturer selling vehicles that supposedly have full autonomy hardware with full autonomy itself a near-future firmware update away. That becomes meaningless hype on a whole new level if the many owners the Tesla rep acknowledges have stated a need for this can get firmware updates but not map updates.
- DKnoll 9y ago
  They can get map updates for free, all they need is WiFi access... am I missing something here? There is free public WiFi all over. I'm shocked that the complaint comes from the SF area of all places, there is probably a higher density of WiFi there than anywhere else on the planet.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > They can get map updates for free, all they need is WiFi access... am I missing something here? There is free public WiFi all over. The updates can't be triggered by the user, so you have to leave your car somewhere (or your phone in your car) for a extended period of time to hope to get an update. There's also not free public parking everywhere (much less free public parking with WiFi coverage), especially in the urban areas where “my parking is remote from my living space and doesn't share wifi with it” is most likely to be an issue. Also, outside of certain urban areas (and this can still be a problem outside of urban areas) there isn't free public WiFi everywhere.

deleted 9y ago

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jasonlingx 9y ago

Idea - allow any tesla vehicle to download updates from any other nearby tesla vehicle

DoubleMalt 9y ago
Cory Doctorow - Eastern Standard Tribe is a must read

schappim 9y ago

This has to be the very definition of a "first world problem".

mansilladev 9y ago
Read my mind.

nodesocket 9y ago

This is just not a real problem, seems like entitled complaining. You have two Tesla's but can't find a friend, office, or public WiFi to download the map update? Boo hoo!!

jwildeboer 9y ago
Problem is you cannot trigger the download. There’s no update button. You have to get WiFi connected and just wait and hope. The person complaining did try. Made his iPhone a hot spot, put it in the car and left it there for days. But the update wasn’t triggered.
- stormcrowsx 9y ago
  That should have been the target of his rant not that they won't turn on LTE updates. He comes off sounding like first world problems in the bulk of this article.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> 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. It would be moot if you just charged a premium for LTE maps updates for the subset of customers who need it. Heck, price it right, and it'll probably be profitable, and also make owners happier.

ComSubVie 9y ago

Why aren't they downloading the updates while charging? Shouldn't be too much effort to either install WiFi at the superchargers or run data over the charge cabling. Then maybe just update the "local" map data around the supercharger (the next charger along the route will update the next area; no need to update unused maps). Also I'm wondering why updates are generally fat blobs instead of deltas.

cameldrv 9y ago

Come on Tesla... You should do the following: As suggested by jasonlingx, have cars update each other. If after a few days this doesn't happen, you need another option. You'll have to go negotiate some deals. First, Comcast has an enormous network of wifi hotspots that their customers create. The per-GB price on this should be very low, particularly if you're willing to be throttled. Second, one of the four major carriers should be willing to work out a deal for extremely cheap data if it's at super off-peak hours, say 2-4am, when there is loads of spare capacity.

Garlef 9y ago

The talk of "exponential costs"... but would the increase in cost per user per month not be linear (wrt the numer of users)?

jlgaddis 9y ago

My Harley-Davidson doesn't have Wi-Fi or LTE (SiriusXM is as good as it gets), but it does have a USB port that I can use to install updates (downloaded onto a flash drive). I'm honestly quite surprised that Teslas have both Wi-Fi and LTE but can't be updated via a similar method.

kelnos 9y ago

The suggestion to park at Starbucks is skeezy, but otherwise the response sounds entirely reasonable. Having many cars pull multi-gigabyte updates over LTE would be prohibitively expensive. What Tesla should do is allow people to receive updates at a service center (or at superchargers), either manually from a technician or just automatically in the background with a known Tesla WiFi network that the car knows how to connect to when at a service center. Hell, the service center could even keep cached copies of the downloads locally to speed things up.

FearNotDaniel 9y ago

I have a portable WiFi hotspot that gives me unlimited downloads over LTE for less than €20/mth. I'm sure a Tesla owner can afford that. Problem solved.

kmonsen 9y ago

What most posters here are missing is that you cannot trigger the update in your Tesla so most suggested workarounds will not work. Including the suggested parking outside a Starbucks.

rightnow 9y ago
An update for this is on the way very soon. They have already announced that.

jaclaz 9y ago

I don't know in the US, but here in Italy a small 3G/4G modem (capable of creating a Wi-Fi hotspot) costed me[1] less than 50 Euro, complete with the SIM in it, and then the data plan is if I recall correctly something like 8 Euro month for 3 or 4 GB of traffic, and 12-15 for 8-10 GB, but it is not a "subscription" you just "recharge" with a given amount of money and it gets the monthly fee from that (if used). The underground garage may be a problem, but if the car is parked outside, it should work fine. [1] at least lat year, I had the telephone/DSL cable cut and to provide remporarily the connectivity of the office quickly put together a Wi-Fi based on that, that we call in jargon "soapbar", the one I got was a Huawei E5330: https://www.eprice.it/router-wifi-HUAWEI/d-5730696 https://www.eprice.it/router-wifi-HUAWEI/d-5730696

dx034 9y ago
But why would you have to buy a 4G router just so that your car can download an update? Sounds needlessly complicated to me. I honestly don't understand why they can't factor in download prices into the price of the car. Having contracts with networks to allow large downloads during certain time windows would probably be close to free (no additional capacity needed in the middle of the night) and would provide a much better experience for the user.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >But why would you have to buy a 4G router just so that your car can download an update? Sounds needlessly complicated to me. I perfectly agree with you on the fact that it represents an example of poor (actually extremely poor) management of the customer assistance and that Tesla should have provided quickly (and hopefully politely, avoiding the small economics lesson that sounded - at least to me - a little bit patronizing) a solution to the issue. But I was approaching the issue at a slightly different angle, the OP on the forum has two cars, of a value of nearly or around 200,000 US$. Their income must be proportional to that, the 3G/4G router, might be worth 60-70 US$ if DIY, and possibly 100-150 US$ if having someone configuring it, i.e. a minimal fraction of their income, if I had those two cars and felt the need to have the road maps updated in a timely fashion, I would have first solved the issue. The fact that for a tag price of 80,000-100,000 US$ per each car I would expect not one but two (one under the driver and one under the passenger seat, in case the first one doesn't work) such little modems as a complimentary courtesy by Tesla would be secundary to solving the problem at hand and have those maps updated.

rightnow 9y ago

I dont see the problem here. Park the car at a wifi somewhere, or get an mini usb wifi router. And use the new upcoming feature to request update button. Stop whining.

dawnerd 9y ago

If Tesla supported carplay/android auto it wouldn't be a problem, but no, gotta re-invent car navigation. I've read some people saying it would be impossible because the infotainment system controls everything. Well every car I've been in with carplay also has the native car ui to control stuff so I don't get the problem. Of course it's about control over the whole experience. Can't be giving consumers a choice. Edit: I say this as someone that plans on eventually buying a model s. I’m just waiting for the technology to mature.

mantas 9y ago
What? A super expensive high tech luxury car in 2018 still doesn't support carplay/android auto?

martimarkov 9y ago

Or just allow your phone to download the 5GB file using WiFi and the “Tesla update app” and transfer to the car using the same app but connected to the Tesla AP or Bluetooth to enable that AP and connect to it. Seems like a very user friendly solution to me.

dingo_bat 9y ago

Just turn on the fucking wifi hotspot in your cellphone and call it a day! Too much time on this guy's hands.

JorgeGT 9y ago
Notice that in the comments they explain that they did exactly this: > I have put my phone in hotspot mode for literally 5 days, left it in one car, and connected both cars (at home, just one car at work because my wife works somewhere else) to my iPhone hotspot, leaving me completely phone-less except for once-a-day charging sessions at home. Despite this, because there is NO way to trigger a “guaranteed” maps/nav update (sounds like Elon will only allow triggering firmware updates), I might need to be without my phone for weeks on end. That’s obviously not a reasonable solution.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Ah! I neglected to read the comments. That does sound like a stupidly designed system. A button to check for updates should be simple to add. PS: Isn't this a major problem for anybody who lives in an apartment, though?

nsb1 9y ago

It seems like there are so many ways to tackle this problem. Don't like USB? Allow the Tesla app to grab the map updates and then dump them to the car next time it connects. If they're trying to grab the file in one massive 8GB chunk, stop it and grab smaller bits as they can. Hell, bittorrent it from other Teslas while you're sitting in traffic.

gargravarr 9y ago

Two things really struck me here. First, the comments about USB - I can fully understand them. USB has been repeatedly shown to be an insecure medium (pretty much by design, it relies on the device being honest about its intentions) and Tesla is probably justified in not exposing a USB port to the customer. At the same time, it's been proven that Tesla's infotainment (eugh, I hate that word!) system runs Ubuntu, so they should really be publishing the source code for it anyway. Second, if this very large download is really a problem that even service centres can't offer it without affecting their own operational bandwidth, why not install a caching proxy in each service centre? Hardly expensive hardware, an RPi with a USB disk would be enough, then the connected cars can download from the cache instead of straight from Tesla each time? Multiple cars in parallel would not be a problem. As a side note, yes, pushing large downloads over cellular connections are expensive. It suits the carriers to have this model; in the UK, when smartphones first came out, unlimited-data plans were common, but very quickly vanished from the market when the carriers realised how many people would take the offer literally. Even now, the carrier I'm on offers unlimited data on the phone, but has a cap on tethering (it's Android, so I have no idea how it's detectable, but...). Compared to the likes of Apple, who have uncountable millions of devices and could easily lean on carriers to make OTA OS updates free, Tesla are comparatively small fries with less than a million cars on the road. They're mostly propped up by investor funding at the moment and are not even turning a profit (last I heard) yet. Not a good position to be arguing with carriers from. And if Tesla are complaining about their own bandwidth distributing these large updates, they obviously need to talk to someone like Akamai and get their updates onto a CDN.

lazyjones 9y ago

That's a bit strange... It would cost them probably less than $10 per customer to just send everyone an USB stick with this update. Or they could give/lend them to customers at the service centers for free.

stormcrowsx 9y ago

If it's that big a deal just tether it to the phone.