Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[racer26]

Well, post is up, and it seems that all AP-enabled MS/MX will be able to use the updates, by switching from treating the radar unit as a secondary sensor to support the visible-light camera, to treating the radar as a primary sensor.

The earth-shaking element to me, is the (soon) enabling of autosteer to evade a collision that is imminent. I imagine that this would be one of the AP-safety features, and therefore included in all AP cars, not just ones with the convenience features enabled. The car can react faster than any human, with pinpoint precision. Soon enough, this type of technology will all but eliminate the vast majority of motor vehicle collisions. The overwhelming majority of MVCs are due to driver error, and were avoidable if one or more of the drivers involved had done something different. If the car can start just taking that action without requiring the driver to react, our roads will get so much safer its unreal.

If history has anything to say, updates that are available on existing cars are usually good for SP. This coupled with whatever squeeze action is coming for the merger vote record date? Should make for a good day tomorrow and tuesday.

 

[tanner]

These are the two most important paragraphs:

"The net effect of this, combined with the fact that radar sees through most visual obscuration, is that the car should almost always hit the brakes correctly even if a UFO were to land on the freeway in zero visibility conditions.

Taking this one step further, a Tesla will also be able to bounce the radar signal under a vehicle in front - using the radar pulse signature and photon time of flight to distinguish the signal - and still brake even when trailing a car that is opaque to both vision and radar. The car in front might hit the UFO in dense fog, but the Tesla will not."

 

[Papafox]

Wow, just wow. No idea if this is moving any share price. But man would I want my Audi to be updated like the Model S! Again, no clue about the stock but this is a HUGE step for the Autopilot and overall road safety. I don't care if Tesla is electric or not - just this alone shows how far ahead of the rest they are!

Yes, AP 1.0 hardware has great improvements ahead, which is important to investors because we will see some fencesitters who are waiting for AP 2.0 to upgrade their Teslas jump when 8.0 software is released (provided it is as good as suggested), and thus we see a positive effect upon demand.

I particularly like the UFO scenarios pointed out by Tanner.

The whole process of identifying objects such as overpasses through fleet learning and then marking them as not a problem will eventually allow the system to brake when a real obstacle exists but not brake when a safe object is approached. So, we don't see lots of braking initially as fleet learning takes place, but once we're 99.9% sure of what is safe and what is not, the braking is added.

Still, there are lots of immediate safety advantages, such as 5 X improvement in Traffic Aware Cruise Control brake ramping and processing. I'm very much looking forward to this release!

 

[tanner]

I particularly like Elon's point that if a UFO lands on a foggy highway and there's a car ahead you, 8.0 software will use the radar that is shot under the car ahead to detect the obstacle, and even though the car ahead may run into the UFO, the Tesla will not.

It might still, but just not as hard "This may not always prevent a collision entirely, but the impact speed will be dramatically reduced to the point where there are unlikely to be serious injuries to the vehicle occupants."

 

[dha]

This post really hits home how monumental Tesla's advantage is right now in having a real-world, cloud-connected fleet out there, smoothing over the instrumented data, collecting that "last mile" of essential information and beaming it back to the mothership to the benefit of all other Tesla drivers. We're talking about one of the biggest machine learning endeavors in the world here, and there are some who still think it will be trivial for incumbents to compete against the only automaker based in the technology capital of the word and headed by one of the godfathers of dotcom.

 

[hobbes]

Love the AP update. I rented a Model S for 3 days last week visiting friends around Germany, 600 mi of mostly freeway driving. The most important (and seemingly doable) missing minor features of AP: Car stays centered in lane when you pass someone who is very close to the lane edge, while I would move a bit out of the way when driving manually. Also, AP would pass another car on the right when speed set higher and right lane free, which is illegal in Germany. Both fixed in 8.0! Very cool, Tesla seems to be very up to date on the real world requirements of drivers.

Also always love how well Elon explains the technical things in blog posts like this. Enough details for techies, but not too much to scare away everyone else.

One big thing kind of hidden in the blog:

Will take highway exit if indicator on (8.0) or if nav system active (8.1). Available in the United States initially

This implies in 8.1 autopilot will be coupled to nav!!!

 

[EinSV]

This info from the press conference seems like a very big deal, particularly when Tesla can present data to back it up:

"Still, Tesla’s Musk says the improvements in Autopilot 8 make the car roughly three times safer than a vehicle without it ..."​

Tesla Autopilot v8 detailed: Smarter radar in 1-2 weeks

 

[mrdoubleb]

These are the two most important paragraphs:

"The net effect of this, combined with the fact that radar sees through most visual obscuration, is that the car should almost always hit the brakes correctly even if a UFO were to land on the freeway in zero visibility conditions.

Taking this one step further, a Tesla will also be able to bounce the radar signal under a vehicle in front - using the radar pulse signature and photon time of flight to distinguish the signal - and still brake even when trailing a car that is opaque to both vision and radar. The car in front might hit the UFO in dense fog, but the Tesla will not."

I can't decide anymore if this is deliberate or just some "Elon" in that post, but the genius part of adding that "UFO" line is that the media will eat it up. So they add something a little tabloid-ish to what they think is te most important part in a way that will ensure this line will get quoted over and over and over again starting right now in every written or spoken news report about this. Just brilliant, once again a 100 million bucks worth of free promos.

 

[sunhelm]

One other point - avoiding false positives would not have been possible without fleet learning, which only Tesla cars can. No other car manufacturer can do this even though the hardware is readily accessible.

 

[NicoV]

I liked "

• Car offsets in lane when overtaking a slower vehicle driving close to its lane edge"

Staying in de middle of the lane while passing a slower car too close on the right is in my experience the most uncomfortable autopilot behavior, and I'm glad this will be fixed.

 

[SebastianR]

Yes, AP 1.0 hardware has great improvements ahead, which is important to investors because we will see some fencesitters who are waiting for AP 2.0 to upgrade their Teslas jump when 8.0 software is released (provided it is as good as suggested), and thus we see a positive effect upon demand.

I think there are other benefits, too: This is about maintaining value for the car you bought some years ago: If you compare Model S to the best driver assist system that was available in 2014 - well there is no comparison!

I particularly like the UFO scenarios pointed out by Tanner.

Yes, well done - there will be "free" discussion and hype around what would happen if an UFO hit a Model S etc. etc. etc. All this will educate people a bit more about Autopilot.

The whole process of identifying objects such as overpasses through fleet learning and then marking them as not a problem will eventually allow the system to brake when a real obstacle exists but not brake when a safe object is approached. So, we don't see lots of braking initially as fleet learning takes place, but once we're 99.9% sure of what is safe and what is not, the braking is added.

This! And the best part about this is, that there is no other car maker that can offer the same service. The moat is widening...

Still, there are lots of immediate safety advantages, such as 5 X improvement in Traffic Aware Cruise Control brake ramping and processing. I'm very much looking forward to this release!

Indeed. But all these are "smaller" improvements if you ask me. To me what is huge is that:

a) this fundamentally changes how the car uses its sensor several years after(!) the car was delivered. (In contrast my Audi can't even get "Bluetooth audio" to work - even though I have the Audi MMI with "Bluetooth handsfree" i.e. I can tell my car to call my wife but my car can't play music from my phone. Audi wants me to buy a new car to get this to work - no, seriously that's their recommendation!)

b) this is solving a huge issue (false positives when doing AEB) with fleet learning. Forget doing anything like that with a legacy car maker: I need to spend an hour in the workshop to have minor bugs fixed. My car does NOT get smarter as the days go by...

I think with all the bitching and moaning about how Tesla is not always perfect, I think we should all get a bit perspective from time to time: they are lightyears ahead of everyone else!

 

[MitchJi]

IMO this won't make much difference in the SP, until it's released, and people experience the improvements. If they are as good as I believe they will be I think it's going to be a significant plus.

In other words I'm not positive myself how good this really is, but I believe it will exceed my expectations, and I believe that the market will be completely clueless.

 

[dennis]

Montana, Anton, Paulo and their ilk over at SA must be grinding furiously to find some negative spin to put on this breakthrough announcement. I can't wait to see what they come up with - it should be truly comical.

 

[Chickenlittle]

Montana, Anton, Paulo and their ilk over at SA must be grinding furiously to find some negative spin to put on this breakthrough announcement. I can't wait to see what they come up with - it should be truly comical.

I suspect it maybe issue of radar waves causing brain cancer

 

[Chickenlittle]

D

IMO this won't make much difference in the SP, until it's released, and people experience the improvements. If they are as good as I believe they will be I think it's going to be a significant plus.

disagree. People on fence waiting for new sensors will now order so demand will increase.

 

[tanner]

I can't decide anymore if this is deliberate or just some "Elon" in that post, but the genius part of adding that "UFO" line is that the media will eat it up. So they add something a little tabloid-ish to what they think is te most important part in a way that will ensure this line will get quoted over and over and over again starting right now in every written or spoken news report about this. Just brilliant, once again a 100 million bucks worth of free promos.

Yep, I'm with you. Elon is a genius... And this blog post is long overdue, but I have a feeling it'll be worth the wait

 

[tanner]

D

disagree. People on fence waiting for new sensors will now order so demand will increase.

100% agree. Plus TSLA is LARGLY affected by news. This will create a surge of positive (bullish) news... BUY BUY BUY / COVER COVER COVER

 

[trentxintong]

Montana, Anton, Paulo and their ilk over at SA must be grinding furiously to find some negative spin to put on this breakthrough announcement. I can't wait to see what they come up with - it should be truly comical.

Do not worry about them . The problem with them is that they do not seem to be able to look at this company in a fair and just way. They seem to have some sort of personal vendetta to Musk.

 

[MitchJi]

100% agree. Plus TSLA is LARGLY affected by news. This will create a surge of positive (bullish) news... BUY BUY BUY / COVER COVER COVER

Tesla is largely impacted by negative news.

I also don't believe that this will create a "surge of positive news".

 

[dha]

From a journalist who was on the call: Vincent everts on Twitter