Tesla to roll out new navigation software this weekend, says Elon Musk
After lagging behind for a few years, Tesla is rolling out its much anticipated new navigation software this weekend and its based on open-source mapping and routing software.
The navigation system in Teslas has been kind of lame for kind of a long time, but according to a tweet by Elon Musk, that's going to start changing this weekend.
Apparently, Tesla has been relying heavily on third-party software that has left them unable to quickly update data or tweak functions. This has left many with woefully out of date maps, particularly outside the US.
New nav starts rolling out this weekend. Should be considered a mature beta at first, so won’t be perfect, but will improve rapidly. With the old system, we were stuck with legacy 3rd party black box code and stale data. No way to improve.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2018
Musk also said in his tweet that this should be treated as a "mature beta," but that functionality should improve rapidly. Electrek has been posting about these updates since a Tesla hacker friend of the site, known as verygreen, discovered the code for the new system in their car last summer.
The new navigation software will feature greatly improved routing as well as much more legible maps thanks to a new feature called "Vector Maps." The software is of Tesla's own design but relies on modules from MapBox and Valhalla, open-source mapping and routing programs, respectively.
Tesla's new navigation software will improve routing dramatically over the outdated system currently in place, according to Elon Musk.
Those of you with Teslas, let us know in the comments if your vehicle receives the new map package this weekend. We're very curious to see how it works!
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