Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2016

[esk8mw]

Seems to me that Occam's Razor would say Tesla's dumping Mobileye because they're not happy with the performance of Mobileye's tech. Esp in light of recent accidents. Also, Tesla moves fast, much faster than any other automaker. This pace is probably a big strain on supply-chain partners. Tesla is impatient, as are we, its customers.

Random prediction, based on no facts or info just thin air: LIDAR is coming.

Interesting prediction. Hasn't Elon said multiple times (including a recent tweet) that LIDAR isn't necessary?

 

[ggr]

It seems that the breakup may have been initiated by Mobileye:

Mobileye (MBLY) Falls as Tesla (TSLA) Relationship to Come to an End

UPDATE: Below is the statement the company provided to StreetInsider:

"Mobileye's work with Tesla will not extend beyond the EyeQ3. We continue to support and maintain the current Tesla Autopilot product plans. This includes a significant upgrade of several functions that affect both the ability to respond to crash avoidance and to optimize auto-steering in the near term, without any hardware updates.

Nevertheless, in our view, moving toward more advanced autonomy is a paradigm shift both in terms of function complexity and the need to ensure an extremely high level of safety. There is much at stake here, to Mobileye’s reputation and to the industry at large. Mobileye believes that achieving this objective requires partnerships that go beyond the typical OEM / supplier relationship, such as our recently announced collaboration with BMW and Intel. Mobileye will continue to pursue similar such relationships."

EDIT: I don't think Mobileye likes Tesla writing software for it's hardware.

Of course that is what they would say if Tesla had terminated the relationship because Mobileye got into bed with BMW.

 

[RAM_Eh]

It is not clear as to who is dropping who. Mobileye has announced a new relationship with BMW, a bigger car company.

 

[150 kWh]

Tesla must want its own proprietary solution to autonomous driving, and to introduce it as quickly
As possible. Tesla wants a first mover advantage. Mobileye wants its solution to be industry wide.

Mobileye can handle all the sensing , camera lidar radar etc., but for autonomous
Driving you need to know where to go, and need mapping as a redundancy, and that
goes beyond identifying obstacles.
Mobileye is doing fine there too, however tesla must feel confident it can get there
As well and faster.

On top of that. Tesla isn't very keen on helping Mobileye to improve their product especially when this product ends up in their competitor's cars.

 

[andrerodpt]

On top of that. Tesla isn't very keen on helping Mobileye to improve their product especially when this product ends up in their competitor's cars.

Actually... All Our Patent Are Belong To You

 

[techmaven]

Actually... All Our Patent Are Belong To You

Well, that's just a one-sided non-aggression pact. Not the same thing as sharing all their trade secrets. There are plenty of things that are not in the patents that are part of Tesla's IP moat, even though they are not protected by patents.

 

[andrerodpt]

Well, that's just a one-sided non-aggression pact. Not the same thing as sharing all their trade secrets. There are plenty of things that are not in the patents that are part of Tesla's IP moat, even though they are not protected by patents.

Sure. But just to point out that Tesla is by far the most "open" of car companies out there.

My guess is that, with BMW, Mobileye can't go as fast as Tesla needs. So they are dumped. And I'm sure a backup plan was fully agreed before this break.

 

[tander]

Guys stop it. Tesla does NOT release monthly figures. There is no July surprise or whatever. They MIGHT give a number in the ER call since the earnings call happens to be early August, but the various outlets that report monthly figures are just estimating.

That doesn't mean there won't be a good delivery number reported but your expectation should be the quarterly cadence. So early October for q3 numbers.

Thanks, my bad, didn't read the small print and thought I heard them say on a conf call that they were going to start releasing monthly numbers, maybe that was wishful.

 

[schonelucht]

Elon Musk on Twitter

Makes you wonder. Elon getting out of call with MobilEye, praising them and telling the world to turn criticism to Tesla. Then a week later MobilEye basically suggesting that Tesla is not a trustworthy partner to go forward. If you combine both elements, it looks like MobilEye is unhappy with how aggressively Tesla is using their technology, possibly fearing reputation damage? If so, was the call at CEO level really about MobilEye putting in one last ditch effort to get Tesla to make Autopilot more defensive? (requiring more hands on, nagging, etc...) No points for guessing that Elon refused. His tweet then being in turn his last ditch effort to convince MobilEye not to break up with Tesla because it could potentially leave current Autopilot equipped Tesla cars in limbo about future improvements?

 

[racer26]

Actually... All Our Patent Are Belong To You

I was just about to say that TSLA's corporate goals of accelerating sustainable transport would seem to support them helping MBLY, at least so long as it were a mutually beneficial arrangement.

That said, I'm sure that TSLA isn't about to give away their single biggest differentiator. Autopilot, and the millions of miles of fleet learning its accumulated are something TSLA has that no one else does, and once other automakers catch up and build the hardware to compete with TSLA, it will be the lone standing competitive advantage.

 

[Vitold]

Makes you wonder. Elon getting out of call with MobilEye, praising them and telling the world to turn criticism to Tesla. Then a week later MobilEye basically suggesting that Tesla is not a trustworthy partner to go forward. If you combine both elements, it looks like MobilEye is unhappy with how aggressively Tesla is using their technology, possibly fearing reputation damage? If so, was the call at CEO level really about MobilEye putting in one last ditch effort to get Tesla to make Autopilot more defensive? (requiring more hands on, nagging, etc...) No points for guessing that Elon refused. His tweet then being in turn his last ditch effort to convince MobilEye not to break up with Tesla because it could potentially leave current Autopilot equipped Tesla cars in limbo about future improvements?

Mobileye and Tesla are competitors. Mobileye is venturing more and more into Tesla's domain (neural networks, real-time mapping) and Tesla wants to do everything that MBLY does only better.

Another difference is how fast the two companies move, Mobileye said that they will deal with cross traffic in a year or two - Tesla wants it now (apparently with Bosches help).

 

[Fallenone]

Makes you wonder. Elon getting out of call with MobilEye, praising them and telling the world to turn criticism to Tesla. Then a week later MobilEye basically suggesting that Tesla is not a trustworthy partner to go forward. If you combine both elements, it looks like MobilEye is unhappy with how aggressively Tesla is using their technology, possibly fearing reputation damage? If so, was the call at CEO level really about MobilEye putting in one last ditch effort to get Tesla to make Autopilot more defensive? (requiring more hands on, nagging, etc...) No points for guessing that Elon refused. His tweet then being in turn his last ditch effort to convince MobilEye not to break up with Tesla because it could potentially leave current Autopilot equipped Tesla cars in limbo about future improvements?

I don't think that tweet was try to convince MBLY not to break up. It's just a nice and responsible tweet from a CEO of a company who is working with other companies. The break up is inevitable as TSLA hired chip maker experts since last year. I doubt they have pretty much parted ways a few months already and the M3 "pencil down" might not even have MBLY in it.

 

[austinEV]

I don't love the MBLY breakup, whoever caused it. They have clever hardware in their chips that make pattern recognition quick and efficient. For TSLA to brew their own, they would probably shift to a standard ARM-based processor and try to do a software solution. The problem is MBLY has shown pretty compellingly that they can outperform software solutions.

EyeQ® - Mobileye

The key strengths of the EyeQ® lie in its use of general CPUs (32 bit RISC ARM946E) and 4 patented Mobileye programmable ASIC cores – Vision Computing Engines (VCEs) – which are optimized for computing major time-consuming image processing tasks. All cores work in parallel to give the EyeQ unrivalled computing power in a small-package cost-effective processor specifically designed for the automotive vision based Driver Assistance Systems (DAS) market.​

 

[elasalle]

One of the explanations after AP incident was that AP would be made to rely on the radar more rather than camera - so from Tesla point of view maybe they have figured out a better approach ..

 

[Tslynk67]

That said, I'm sure that TSLA isn't about to give away their single biggest differentiator. Autopilot, and the millions of miles of fleet learning its accumulated are something TSLA has that no one else does, and once other automakers catch up and build the hardware to compete with TSLA, it will be the lone standing competitive advantage.

Have to admit that I personally think Tesla's biggest single differentiator is, well, everything!

 

[tander]

Sure. But just to point out that Tesla is by far the most "open" of car companies out there.

My guess is that, with BMW, Mobileye can't go as fast as Tesla needs. So they are dumped. And I'm sure a backup plan was fully agreed before this break.

I recall Musk saying sort of negative things about Mobile's strategy months ago. It seems like they are putting both feet into big data.

 

[Fallenone]

I don't love the MBLY breakup, whoever caused it. They have clever hardware in their chips that make pattern recognition quick and efficient. For TSLA to brew their own, they would probably shift to a standard ARM-based processor and try to do a software solution. The problem is MBLY has shown pretty compellingly that they can outperform software solutions.

EyeQ® - Mobileye

The key strengths of the EyeQ® lie in its use of general CPUs (32 bit RISC ARM946E) and 4 patented Mobileye programmable ASIC cores – Vision Computing Engines (VCEs) – which are optimized for computing major time-consuming image processing tasks. All cores work in parallel to give the EyeQ unrivalled computing power in a small-package cost-effective processor specifically designed for the automotive vision based Driver Assistance Systems (DAS) market.​

NVDA is not far behind. And the disadvantage NVDA has to MBLY is power efficiency. It may be a problem in ICE cars but a Tesla with at least 60 kWh? Not a problem at all.

 

[andrerodpt]

I recall Musk saying sort of negative things about Mobile's strategy months ago. It seems like they are putting both feet into big data.

Queue Google?

 

[Drax7]

Mobileye and Tesla are competitors. Mobileye is venturing more and more into Tesla's domain (neural networks, real-time mapping) and Tesla wants to do everything that MBLY does only better.

Another difference is how fast the two companies move, Mobileye eye said that they will deal with cross traffic in a year or two - Tesla want's it now.

Collision avoidance and autonomous driving are mobileye's core competency, applying
Artificial intelligence( stupidity) to computer vision.

Tesla's are EVs.

 

[tinm]

If during the upcoming earnings call an analyst doesn't ask Tesla, "Ok, so what does abandoning Mobileye mean to the very aggressive Model 3 rollout?" then they're not doing their job.

Seems to me, we are now faced with Model 3 using different technology. Meaning Tesla would have to support an aging fleet of Model S's and X's with Mobileye tech, and a new fleet of 3's with other tech. Double the engineering, double the QA, double the support, double the risk of something going wrong.

Tesla's future just got more expensive again.