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Toyota gps is just garbage. Hangs all the time. I strongly believe car makers just don't see software as a critical component. Exception is tesla.
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I would love a rear-view camera that could display on my phone
I just wish I could have my rear-view camera on while I was driving forward.
I've always hated built in GPS for two reasons. First and most important - the damn maps are always viewed from directly above the car so the map is 2D and North is always at the top. There is a lot of effin' mental work to try and figure out which damn way your car is pointing and whether you need to turn left or turn right because you may be driving "down" the map and shit is reversed. On my phone or on my garmin I…
Both my previous car (2013 Ford C-Max hybrid) and current car (2014 Audi A4) both had options to adjust whether the nav map view was locked to cardinal directions, or if it followed the car's perspective.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last time I used a car GPS, it told me I was in for a 20 hour drive across the northern midwest. Google Maps helpfully turned that into 4 hours, by recognizing the major highway missing from the car system. A highway, I should add, at least ten years older than the car. The struggle for Waze is keeping their traffic data up to the minute, the struggle for cars is keeping their roadmaps on par with a decade-old atlas.
Waze continually gets me to work through back roads and side streets in 20 min, a trip that in traffic on the "normal" routes takes roughly an hour... Maybe one day cars will have GPS on that level built in... but for now... nope
I've always hated built in GPS for two reasons. First and most important - the damn maps are always viewed from directly above the car so the map is 2D and North is always at the top. There is a lot of effin' mental work to try and figure out which damn way your car is pointing and whether you need to turn left or turn right because you may be driving "down" the map and shit is reversed. On my phone or on my garmin I…
Newer ones give you directions on the dashboard and I've never even seen a system that doesn't give you a 3D map.
Toyota gps is just garbage. Hangs all the time. I strongly believe car makers just don't see software as a critical component. Exception is tesla.
Semi unrelated question: Am I the only one who wished navigation apps allowed more precise control of route complexity? Just a slider that goes between "minimum number of turns" and "most efficient" would be nice. Optimizing a route for complexity vs efficiency is a very important consideration when planning a route. A way to do that in a navigation app would be really nice. I appreciate the intention but taking four…
Google has been improving over the years, but still hasn't caught up with the user friendliness of garmin. Garmin seems to give the kind of directions that a human navigator sitting next to you would. Google seems like a machine that knows nothing of the real world!
Out of curiosity, are there any Tesla owners that can chime in about their experience? Do you use the in-built GPS, or just use your phone? I would think if anyone has it right, it would be Tesla.
I use the built-in GPS about 99% of the time. I keep a mount in the car just in case I need to use my phone for navigation, but that almost never happens. The built-in navigation isn't great. It lacks some pretty obvious options (it doesn't offer multiple routes, and you can't give it intermediate waypoints) and its routing is occasionally stupid. Although the big screen shows Google Maps, the actual routing is done…
Most gps let you pick to include or exclude car pools, but it is such a pain to change the setting that it is usually left on excluding car pools. But Tesla could know exactly how many people are in the car, and do the right thing automatically. It would also affect journey times since car pool lanes are often quicker.
Another reason not mentioned by the article is map updates . Lexus charges $169+ to update the map data and requires a dealer appointment. A smartphone with google/Apple maps is always more up-to-date. If you're buying a new car today, the reason to get navigation is for the LCD screen and not for the GPS. The LCD is used to see the rear view camera image for parking. Also, playing music shows the song titles.
I could have sworn the US govt mandated that all new cars, after some soon to come year, must have rear facing cameras. Perhaps I heard incorrectly.
However, the routes are not the most efficient, and although it supposedly uses Sirius for traffic, the data isn't very accurate. Google Maps often gives me a much more efficient route that can be twice as fast given current traffic conditions, but is more "unusual".
Audi's GPS likes to stick to main roads that become heavily clogged. And even though I have an update that came out within the last 2 months, it still doesn't have a major construction project that has been completed for a year added, and always tries to route you around it.
So basically I use Google Maps for navigation within the city or areas that I'm familiar with, and Audi's navigation for long trips (ie inter city highway trips) where the route will mostly be the same on both systems.
That being said, the GPS in my car ALWAYS gets an accurate lock right away. My phone (Nexus 6P) has an awful GPS that doesn't work in hilly areas or around tall buildings and constantly loses the signal. It barely works inside the car, and even then the accuracy isn't great. Guess the all metal phone really kills the GPS signal, since the Nexus 6 had an amazingly good GPS with high accuracy in the same conditions.