Tesla is dumping Mobileye???

[AZ Desert Driver]

Wow! I was away from TMC for a couple of days and now there are multiple pages of posts since you posted your question. A number of the other posters covered the main points, but there are a couple of things I'll add.

For companies that want to follow the spirit of this regulation, they make sure to communicate that "conflict-free" does not equal "DRC-free". The goal of the legislation is to promote responsible sourcing practices in the DRC region, not to create an embargo of minerals from the region. Companies like Apple, Tesla & my employer communicate this in their Conflict Minerals policy & in their annual Form SD & Conflict Minerals Report (CMR).

The whole point of the process is to determine where the 3TG content is originating from. To do that, data is tracked at the smelter level. The Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI) has created a program to audit smelters to validate that their 3TG content can be traced back to mines that are not funding the armed groups operating in the DRC. Tesla, as a CFSI member, has access to the data that the CFSI has gathered regarding the country of origin of the 3TG content for smelters that have been audited. However, the CFSI does not publish the specific country that is the source of the minerals.

The legislation applies not only to the DRC, but also to the surrounding region. This includes all the countries that border on the DRC. There is smuggling that goes on across country borders, which is why those countries are included within the list of the "covered countries" as part of this rule. This is where South Sudan comes in to play. South Sudan is one of the "covered countries". However, South Sudan does not have any sources of 3TG content (see pages 11 & 12 of this PDF from Claigan). As is shown on page 12, listing South Sudan as a country of origin is likely an error due to companies listing all of the covered countries as countries of origin. Companies should be not only relying on the groupings of countries provided by the CFSI for mineral sourcing, but doing additional investigation to trace back to the actual country of origin. This is an extremely difficult process. Because of how difficult it is, the Executive Team that I report to regarding my employer's conflict minerals process has decided that we will not list smelters or countries of origin in our report, despite pressure from NGOs to disclose that information, because we believe that the data quality is too poor.

Very good description of this important topic. Thank you for your input.

 

[Tam]

Does it have a problem detecting them or merely distinguishing cars stopped in your lane or that you will otherwise drive around, from cars stopped/parked on the side of the lane? See the thread where people complain that Tesla detects cars parked in front of a lane that merges and reduces power. Something is detecting those parked cars.

Another accident in China (a repeat of Switzerland) that reminds the limitations of Autopilot when it comes to stationary vehicles.

 

[BriansBucketList]

I suspect Tesla wants to keep the AP system in house, and when the liability debate gets to "who or what company is responsible for that accident" when multiple vendors are involved. If you look ahead and imagine a car you "summon" from 50 miles away, and a collision occurs, systems that make the driving decisions could be responsible. Very disruptive to the insurance industry.

This brings to lights all the discussions of what the sensors are capable of. We've had hints that the real decision making is post input and how the car makes driving decisions based on sensor input. There is so much happening there. That little ultrasonic sensor seems very limited, but from my understanding, the frequency depends how far they focus. Sort of like medical ultrasound, so their programming could increase their effectiveness.

Without mentioning the guy that took the Acura ILX and bet Elon he could create a better autopilot system with cheap hardware, I believe Elon is smart enough to realize the potential of inexpensive hardware, used in conjunction with higher definition maps that more accurately define the required car path (necessary to take sensor input from straight ahead and sides, and decide which to ignore because the car won't travel there) and he sees a path to much greater autonomy using more limited hardware.

What if he started using rear view camera data for more than driver decision making ?

 

[MP3Mike]

Resurrecting this old thread: I think it is interesting that I haven't seen any mention of one of the things that Elon mentioned in the ER call today: That they had planned to have the Mobileye and Tesla Vision/Nvidia running in parallel in the cars to make a graceful switch from AP1 software to AP2 software but that Mobileye refused so Tesla had to redesign the board to exclude the EyeQ3 chip and switch to a 100% Tesla Vision system much sooner than they wanted.

So Tesla wanted to make the experience great for their customers by putting hardware in that would only be used for a few months...

I think this is the real reason that Mobileye cancelled Tesla as a customer, to make Tesla's transition as difficult as possible.

 

[PowerSource]

If this is true... it should be relatively easy to adapt the AP1 system to AP2 cars so that the transition is relatively easy. I may try this on my own P100D. I think I have most of the hardware necessary to make AP1 work (mobileye SOC, harnesses etc)

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

If this is true... it should be relatively easy to adapt the AP1 system to AP2 cars so that the transition is relatively easy. I may try this on my own P100D. I think I have most of the hardware necessary to make AP1 work (mobileye SOC, harnesses etc)

The NVidia PX1 is fast enough that you could try making an EyeQ3 emulator.

 

[Vitold]

Resurrecting this old thread: I think it is interesting that I haven't seen any mention of one of the things that Elon mentioned in the ER call today: That they had planned to have the Mobileye and Tesla Vision/Nvidia running in parallel in the cars to make a graceful switch from AP1 software to AP2 software but that Mobileye refused so Tesla had to redesign the board to exclude the EyeQ3 chip and switch to a 100% Tesla Vision system much sooner than they wanted.

So Tesla wanted to make the experience great for their customers by putting hardware in that would only be used for a few months...

I think this is the real reason that Mobileye cancelled Tesla as a customer, to make Tesla's transition as difficult as possible.

This is just a confirmation of old news. From MBLY perspective, they preferred to lose Tier 1 customer rather than help train Tesla system. MBLY wanted two things - Tesla's 100% commitment and for Tesla to drop their in-house efforts. They got neither.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Resurrecting this old thread: I think it is interesting that I haven't seen any mention of one of the things that Elon mentioned in the ER call today: That they had planned to have the Mobileye and Tesla Vision/Nvidia running in parallel in the cars to make a graceful switch from AP1 software to AP2 software but that Mobileye refused so Tesla had to redesign the board to exclude the EyeQ3 chip and switch to a 100% Tesla Vision system much sooner than they wanted.

So Tesla wanted to make the experience great for their customers by putting hardware in that would only be used for a few months...

I think this is the real reason that Mobileye cancelled Tesla as a customer, to make Tesla's transition as difficult as possible.

I think you're right. Once Tesla decided to build their own system, Mobileye couldn't cut them loose fast enough. Frankly, I don't blame them. Tesla is now a direct competitor, so why help Tesla at all?

I do hope they get AP2 working well soon. I'm enjoying my AP1 system since it is rock solid.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I think you're right. Once Tesla decided to build their own system, Mobileye couldn't cut them loose fast enough. Frankly, I don't blame them. Tesla is now a direct competitor, so why help Tesla at all?

I do hope they get AP2 working well soon. I'm enjoying my AP1 system since it is rock solid.

If a company vertically integrates they don't become a direct competitor. To directly compete Tesla would have to sell the hardware to other manufactures.

NVidia is really a better match for Tesla since MobileEye was meant as a drop in hardware/software solution. Where a car company could elect to enable specific features. MobileEye is meant to be rock solid for very specific things like FCW, AEB, TACC, etc. It was never meant to be taken past Level 2 semi-autonomous driving.

Where with NVidia it's a lot more about rolling your own solution using their hardware. They are developing some functionality to make it possible to drop it in without too much custom programming, but that's likely going to be awhile.

The split between Tesla and MobileEye is great for the automotive technology world as it gives us more competition. For MobileEye itself it remains to be seen.

 

[Lex]

There goes Mobileye, snapped up by Intel:
Intel Confirms $15 Billion Mobileye Deal - Slashdot

Interesting eh ... maybe Elon could have negotiated a smoother transition with Intel, but that's now history. Tesla Vision is nearly there.

In the meantime we have the unique opportunity in our Mobileye-enabled AP1 cars to gloat about having something that's better and older, if only for a moment in time

 

[xkwizit]

There goes Mobileye, snapped up by Intel:
Intel Confirms $15 Billion Mobileye Deal - Slashdot

Interesting eh ... maybe Elon could have negotiated a smoother transition with Intel, but that's now history. Tesla Vision is nearly there.

In the meantime we have the unique opportunity in our Mobileye-enabled AP1 cars to gloat about having something that's better and older, if only for a moment in time

Maybe even put an Intel Inside sticker