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Old 06-25-2019, 02:16 PM   #1241
wdc330i
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I was thinking about this a lot this weekend--I drove the Tesla to Charlottesville after a week or so of driving the BMW every day.

Yes, the lack of gauges in front of the driver is goofy, but you very quickly get used to it--and reading the speed in the Tesla is actually easier than in the BMW, with its goofy 200 mph speedometer and attendant small-as-hell increment marks. And really for the Tesla you don't need a lot of gauges. There's no tach, eg, or water temp or whatever. Battery SOC could be more prominent, but that's about it.

Physical buttons are nice, especially in the winter. And the BMW has a nice row of physical buttons for the media/radio. But there aren't enough of them to store all the good stations, so then you have to dive into iDrive. And let me tell you, iDrive still sucks balls. It's way better than it used to be, but it's far harder to use to do simple tasks than the Tesla.

One HUGE thing--entering nav addresses. In the Tesla, it's easy as hell. The BMW is...not. Fortunately, BMW has a nice linked application that lets you look up the address on your phone and send it to the car, which works pretty well. But just using the iDrive controller to enter an address guarantees you'll pretty much never use the nav.
At this point I just tell Siri to navigate where I want to go, via Apple CarPlay.
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Old 06-25-2019, 02:18 PM   #1242
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At this point I just tell Siri to navigate where I want to go, via Apple CarPlay.
Ugh, I have a love/hate relationship with CarPlay. When it works, it's pretty nice, but mine only ever worked intermittently in the VW. My other issue with it is that it burns your data to navigate, which is mostly fine if you have an unlimited plan but still seems unnecessary if the car has its own nav.

My BMW, oddly enough, doesn't have CarPlay--and the Tesla doesn't either.
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Old 06-25-2019, 02:27 PM   #1243
John V
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JST View Post
I was thinking about this a lot this weekend--I drove the Tesla to Charlottesville after a week or so of driving the BMW every day.

Yes, the lack of gauges in front of the driver is goofy, but you very quickly get used to it--and reading the speed in the Tesla is actually easier than in the BMW, with its goofy 200 mph speedometer and attendant small-as-hell increment marks. And really for the Tesla you don't need a lot of gauges. There's no tach, eg, or water temp or whatever. Battery SOC could be more prominent, but that's about it.

Physical buttons are nice, especially in the winter. And the BMW has a nice row of physical buttons for the media/radio. But there aren't enough of them to store all the good stations, so then you have to dive into iDrive. And let me tell you, iDrive still sucks balls. It's way better than it used to be, but it's far harder to use to do simple tasks than the Tesla.

One HUGE thing--entering nav addresses. In the Tesla, it's easy as hell. The BMW is...not. Fortunately, BMW has a nice linked application that lets you look up the address on your phone and send it to the car, which works pretty well. But just using the iDrive controller to enter an address guarantees you'll pretty much never use the nav.
I keep forgetting you have a BMW. To the point that I have forgotten which BMW you have. Presumably something much more modern than an E46. And yeah, BMW interiors have gotten worse (again IMO) since the E46.

Um. "stations?" Like as in the radio? I haven't used the radio in any of our cars in ... three years, I'm guessing? I just stream everything through my phone at this point.

I also never use in-car nav. The CX-5 and the Ram both have it (though admittedly it's terrible in both) but Google Maps through my phone is just better in every way than either of the built-in systems.
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Old 06-25-2019, 02:33 PM   #1244
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JST View Post
Ugh, I have a love/hate relationship with CarPlay. When it works, it's pretty nice, but mine only ever worked intermittently in the VW. My other issue with it is that it burns your data to navigate, which is mostly fine if you have an unlimited plan but still seems unnecessary if the car has its own nav.



My BMW, oddly enough, doesn't have CarPlay--and the Tesla doesn't either.


Yeah bmw was late to the CarPlay party.

What year is your m3 again? If it’s a 2017+:
-you can navigate by saying “ navigate to (place name, address, etc” just like the Tesla . It works really well and it’s fast
-for certain phone apps like Spotify as pandora it will automatically launch them and let you control them via idrive via Bluetooth. It works better than CarPlay imo and seems like something Tesla could do .

I really like the hard keys around the idrive controller for navigating around - much prefer it to any touch screen while driving. The only thing a touch screen works better for imo is typing an addrsss manually .

Probably a case of you prefer what you get used to and on my model 3 test drive the all screen interface was less annoying than I anticipated. Agree that a full gauge cluster is overkill for an EV, but would be nice to have nav directions, basic media info and speed info in front of you.
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Old 06-25-2019, 02:35 PM   #1245
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JST View Post
Ugh, I have a love/hate relationship with CarPlay. When it works, it's pretty nice, but mine only ever worked intermittently in the VW. My other issue with it is that it burns your data to navigate, which is mostly fine if you have an unlimited plan but still seems unnecessary if the car has its own nav.

My BMW, oddly enough, doesn't have CarPlay--and the Tesla doesn't either.
interesting, android auto doesn't seem to burn through my data plan. I do use the default drawn maps over satellite which I assume helps.


I use the digital speedo in all my cars
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Old 06-25-2019, 03:01 PM   #1246
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Apropos, I just did a mine hour roundtrip drive to pick my kid up from camp. I used Google Maps and intentionally selected the optional route that was just a bit longer but avoiding horrible interstates with trucks. But, without asking and confirming, Google Maps defaulted to the interstates as I was driving. Maddening. Any way to stop that from happening?
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Old 06-25-2019, 03:04 PM   #1247
John V
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I've never noticed excessive data usage using nav on my phone. And I use it twice a day, every day (to and from work) to navigate around traffic. With Waze on in the background for police.

wdc330i - in google maps, go into nav settings for the trip you're on, and select the "avoid highways" option.

JV
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Old 06-25-2019, 03:32 PM   #1248
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I've never noticed excessive data usage using nav on my phone. And I use it twice a day, every day (to and from work) to navigate around traffic. With Waze on in the background for police.

wdc330i - in google maps, go into nav settings for the trip you're on, and select the "avoid highways" option.

JV
Thanks, JV. Trickier than that because the routes I wanted involved some highway chunks. Alas.

Seems I may just need to switch to Apple Maps for the alternate route scenario: https://lifehacker.com/how-to-preven...you-1827316333

Last edited by wdc330i; 06-25-2019 at 03:55 PM.
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Old 06-25-2019, 03:43 PM   #1249
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I keep forgetting you have a BMW. To the point that I have forgotten which BMW you have. Presumably something much more modern than an E46. And yeah, BMW interiors have gotten worse (again IMO) since the E46.

Um. "stations?" Like as in the radio? I haven't used the radio in any of our cars in ... three years, I'm guessing? I just stream everything through my phone at this point.

I also never use in-car nav. The CX-5 and the Ram both have it (though admittedly it's terrible in both) but Google Maps through my phone is just better in every way than either of the built-in systems.
Ha ha I've only had it for a few weeks! It's an F80 M3. Goodbye VW.

I agree that they've gotten worse, though the F80 is nicer generally than the E61 or E90. It's nicely laid out, and the controls are mostly in the right places.
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Old 06-25-2019, 04:34 PM   #1250
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The other thing you can do to avoid specific highways is just map out the route on a computer beforehand and send it to your phone. Google always tries to find the fastest route so it will steer you back to the interstate in most cases.

I literally did not know Apple maps was still a thing. Is it still the worst thing ever?
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