
Tesla’s response to getting maps updates over LTE or service center WiFi - jijojv
https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/tesla%E2%80%99s-crazy-response-getting-maps-updates-over-lte-or-service-center-wifi#new
======
tristanj
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...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/firmware-
update-2018-12.111854/page-12#post-2651767)

~~~
siwatanejo
Yeah sure. What they really need to do is proper delta-updates, not download
the full navigationData file.

~~~
p49k
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
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.

~~~
codeulike
But you have to carefully check which version is currently there before you
apply the delta, to make sure it's applicable. Also make sure previous delta
was fully applied and not stopped halfway through etc etc. It really is not as
trivial as you make it sound, hence the extra engineering burden mentioned in
comment above.

~~~
iainmerrick
OK, but if they're a good member of the tech community, they should put in
that effort and/or charge their own customers appropriately. Not just punt on
it and exploit somebody else's free service.

~~~
codeulike
But then they also need to download other large files regularly. So I think
their policy is to tell people to do it over wifi, and most people can do
that, because their car sits in a garage or near a house all night. Seems
sensible, no? Why take the risk of messing about with deltas when most
customers manage fine.

------
kylec
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
>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
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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> A small piece of software could be created to “handhold” the user though the
> forces of downloading the update file, format a usb stick and copy the
> update file to it.

Or just make and sell a cheap device (basically a low-spec tablet dedicated to
a single app) that can connect to WiFi, say in the users home, and then be
taken to the car and act as a hotspot with no upstream connection and deliver
the update. (You can probably make it even smaller and cheaper with no screen
if you want to offload the UI to a smartphone app; at which point you can
probably have it hang off a keychain.)

~~~
Crosseye_Jack
In the “mobile first” world we are moving to (thinking about how I see more
people reaching for their tablet first over their laptop even if they even own
a computer these days) I could see a “bridging cache device” like you say
becoming more likely.

Hell with the size of WiFi enabled microprocessors these days (something like
an esp8266 paired with enough flash to hold the updates) you could prob
squeeze it right into the cars keyfob itself. Though I would want the wifi
processor to be separate from the keyfobs key processor.

Edit: Wireless charging of the fob so the car keeps the fob charged. When the
car detects an update is available via its lte connection it wakes up the more
power hungry WiFi chip in the fob via induction or something (trying to keep
the “cars keys” processor separated from the WiFi processor) and a notice on
the cars dash or an push notification to the cars companion phone app notifies
the user of an update. If the fob knows of a WiFi station it can listen for
that beacon and then download the update. If not found after a while goes into
a pairing mode for connection to a phone/tablet like you say by offloading the
UI.

Would need some polish to make it user friendly but yeah... I’m liking the
idea.

------
hatsunearu
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!

~~~
endymi0n
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
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...“

~~~
skgoa
Surely you would want internet at a charging location just so you can monitor
it remotely.

~~~
iknowstuff
Superchargers are connected, but probably don't have the hardware to act as a
WiFi hotspot. Teslas, on the other hand, do have WiFi, so if they acted as
Tesla-only hotspots when idly charging, I guess they could redistribute their
stored firmware updates to other charging peers.

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noonespecial
"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
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
More specifically, they prevent you from downloading any applications that
exceed 100 MB in size via your cellular connection.

~~~
ade2
Minor correction, it's now 150 mb, since fall 2017.

------
dawnerd
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
What? A super expensive high tech luxury car in 2018 still doesn't support
carplay/android auto?

------
kelnos
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.

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oferzelig
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
> 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
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.

------
taneq
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.

~~~
kelnage
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
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?

------
DKnoll
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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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
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
> 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.

------
omarforgotpwd
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
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
> 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.

------
kmonsen
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.

------
jaclaz
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
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
>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.

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

~~~
DoubleMalt
Cory Doctorow - Eastern Standard Tribe is a must read

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

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

------
TheSpiceIsLife
> _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.

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

~~~
mansilladev
Read my mind.

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dragonwriter
> 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
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.

------
gargravarr
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.

------
nsb1
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.

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

~~~
JorgeGT
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
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?

------
jlgaddis
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.

------
cameldrv
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.

------
nodesocket
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
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
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.

------
FearNotDaniel
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.

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

------
martimarkov
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.

------
lazyjones
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.

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

------
chli
Are Tesla not equipped with a USB port ?

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

