Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[RobsJester]

“Why Bots and what will they be used for?”

I have a theory - always Frame Elon’s endeavors as pieces to make human-life multi planetary

Try it, it’s a fun game: think of a feature of any Musk company and consider how it’s directly applicable to enabling life on Mars

Teslabot - In short, life on Mars will be exceedingly dangerous, and frankly, Mars will require expendable labor. Also, humans and life-support require a lot of room on a rocket - SpaceX can pack 50 times more 125lbs 5’ Teslabots per rocket

Boring/tunnels - the atmosphere on Mars is thin and surface is baked with solar radiation, Marian colonies will be subterranean. Thus the Boring Co

SolarCity - most viable way to Power Mars is solar. Winter will be very long and brutal on Mars, so Megapack & Stationary Storage

Starlink - clearly Cable and phone lines are nonexistent on Mars and the atmosphere may not be conducive for radio waves, requiring a planet-wide satellite Internet for colonies to communicate

Cybertruck Stainless Steel Exoskeleton - Starship uses the same grade of Stainless. Service Centers in various climates all over the world will note possible issues with stainless prior to launching the first reusable rockets to Mars.

Neural link - Mars will require our best and brightest, removing the finger/voice data bottleneck will increase productivity for the few colonists

Autopilot/FSD - labor on Mars will be scarce - vehicles will need to be autonomous

Ok, the theory does fall apart when considering sophomoric ideas like Fartmode and Snake-Jazz, but hey, everyone needs a little fun

To bookend for shareholders - the Q posed at the event is quite valid: is there a market for very expensive robots to replace low-waged labor? Perhaps not. But, I suspect Teslabot will be in development for years with limited impact on R&D. Initial delivery in late 2020’s to coincide with SpaceX first rockets to Mars - Teslabot production scaled lockstep with Starship production, and by mid-2030’s, SpaceX and Pentagon will buy the entire production run in perpetuity

 

[ninpb]

UAW: haha, now Elon's gonna come crawling after we snubbed him from the white house meeting and bend the knee.

Elon: literally a week later shows plans for humanoid that puts a bolt into a car.

UAW:

 

[StealthP3D]

Re the question - Why the humanoid form vs something else? Here's my take.

For the same reason the cars only need vision to drive (bc all the roadsigns, lights... were designed around human vision), the human form will operate most effectively because everthing was made for the human form. It offers the maximum # of possible tasks "Optimus" could accomplish. This best explains the starting point, then enhancements could come later as he pointed out.

Exactly! But taking the decision to make it humanoid down to a more fundamental level:

The best part is no part. A dog has four legs but only two are necessary for mobility. There's a reason why humans evolved to stand upright, this leaves two limbs for manipulating the world around them. Also, space efficiency. Humans have a smaller footprint.

Of course this gives Wall Street another reason to take us down since robot development will cost money but not bring any money this quarter. Same with Dojo.

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

Do we have enough cash to buy BostonDynamics ?

Tesla doesn’t need to buy Boston Dynamics, if their best employees decide to come work for Tesla instead.

Think 4d.

 

[capster]

…
• I don't get the point of Tesla Bot and how that furthers the mission of sustainable energy and transportation

Remember that Tesla is rate limited by battery capacity.

Given Tesla is already developing the capability to create (most of) the software for a humanoid robot by virtue of developing FSD, it makes sense for them to create such a robot if the potential markets are many and large, the potential margins are good, and the robots need a lot fewer batteries per dollar of revenue.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Interesting that Optimus had specs that define an average human in many ways - it's essentially a requirements doc.
I'm actually 5'8", so just my size! (Except, I'm not 145 lbs anymore.)

Question is WHEN will those big computing numbers and ambitions translate to valuation? Well... it should in my mind, but I can wait. More stuff to come, I love it!

I can see Optimus having many skills you can purchase $$$, just pick what you want it to do... only $19.95/mo for dishwashing skills! (Basic handtools included.)

 

[CLK350]

I was wondering this too, lol.

AI Day was much more interesting than I expected it to be. And more promising too. I need to find some more money to buy even more shares, like NOW.

The new D1 chip *and* the training tile incorporating 25 D1 chips on one big tile - which can be grouped in cabinets of 120 tiles, all of which communicating on all channels at twice the speed of the current fastest comm chips, plus their software and data management/ store advances, are a huge advance over existing tech.

As usual I don't think investors will understand the impact this has both for FSD and for computing ( Dojo as a service) or even longer term for TeslaBot.
So looking forward to Rob Maurer's take tomorrow (he was one of the few non engineers/ potential recruits invited)

And for the record, Tesla is becoming an AI (+robotics) company - from their new AI page AI page

" .. We’re seeking mechanical, electrical, controls and software engineers to help us leverage our AI expertise beyond our vehicle fleet. "

The Tesla Day presentation highlighted all the impressive advances being made right now, in all but the TeslaBot area.

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

Tesla Bot use cases: Boring, repetitive and dangerous.

Looks like the FUDsters can buy a Teslabot to do Gojo’s job better than Gojo.

 

[MC3OZ]

the Q posed at the event is quite valid: is there a market for very expensive robots to replace low-waged labor?

I think we need to pose the additional question :- "How expensive will Robots be?"

In low volumes, built by a semi-automated process similar to the Tesla Roadster, I think expensive, possibly the cost of a new Roadster $250K...

Then we need to consider the raw materials cost and the cost for high volume manufacture...

I think a Robot produced in high volume manufacturing might cost around the same as a Model 3, fewer raw materials, but some of them more expensive..
It would probably take a decade from the first low volume production to the final high volume product and perhaps 5 years to build the initial product...

But assume a Robot costs $50K to make and can work 20 hours per day for 10 years with minimal maintenance, consuming about the same amount of electricity as a car... Ignoring electricity, the Robot costs around $0.70 per hour

In Australia we import people from nearby pacific Island countries to do fruit-picking and similar manual work harvesting all kinds of crops...
There are lots of routine low wages jobs like that. which may be hard to fill in future...
If our pacific neighbours children get an education and good qualifications, maybe they don't want to do the menial work their parents were happy to do.

 

[hd-2]

can someone please relate this to NVDA offerings - this is above my head

From NVDA's marketing - The closest comparison I can find is in their SATURNV inforgraphic showing 660 petaFLOPS. In the same pdf they show 1.8 exaFLOPS in a DGX SuperPOD (not built yet, just like Dojo). I assume there will be some better comparisons on reddit by tomorrow.

 

[floydboy]

Elon's exaFLOP house. THE place for brilliant hobos!

 

[Oveeus]

C’mon Tesla: “humanoid” robots? Make ‘em octopus-like. MUCH more versatile, particularly for fabrication purposes.

From its purpose perspective, making it a humanoid form makes a lot of sense. A lot of infrastructures, especially those "dangerous, boring and repetitive jobs" are designed for people to fit into it one way or the other so maintenance or work can be carried out. By designing a robot in the shape of the average human, it means that it can be programmed or "taught" to do all those jobs from day 1 without having to make any adjustments to the environment to accommodate the robot.

 

[NicoV]

Loved the first part of the fsd/dojo presentation!
It increased my confidence that Tesla is on the right path making FSD happening!

I'm sorry... but the spandex guy dancing, humanoid idea... kinda freaked me out. Imho should've waited another year before revealing this until there is an actual prototype ready! Now that part had a big vaporware feeling for me. I know I'll get many dislikes for it... But that's my honest opinion.
I get the idea that Tesla is making the building blocks and infrastructure for the software that eventually will be applied to Optimus.
Elon is like: "hey, I have just invented the transistor. I can make/sell a Playstation 5 out of it" He's not wrong, but the timeframe is messed up.
At this stage, is it really necessary for Tesla to announce products that'll take years again before they ship anything to customers?
(Roadster 2, Semi announced in 2017. Solar roof 2016.... Cybertruck 2019... I get the argument that Tesla needed access to capital from investors, hence the look at future portfolio). I whish time between announcement and shipment of products was shorter.... But Optimus really enlarged that feeling


Maybe it's because I was watching this from Belgium and being tired... need to sleep on it... let it sink in, digest it further. Maybe tomorrow after reading other opinions, different views,..., I'll have a different opinion.

Everybody knows that it will take time (Elon time) to realise this. They need personnel to realise this. If I was 30 years younger, I’d want to work for Tesla. And that was the purpose of this presentation.

 

[22522]

From its purpose perspective, making it a humanoid form makes a lot of sense. A lot of infrastructures, especially those "dangerous, boring and repetitive jobs" are designed for people to fit into it one way or the other so maintenance or work can be carried out. By designing a robot in the shape of the average human, it means that it can be programmed or "taught" to do all those jobs from day 1 without having to make any adjustments to the environment to accommodate the robot.

Can drive any vehicle...

 

[capster]

I think we need to pose the additional question :- "How expensive will Robots be?"

In low volumes, built by a semi-automated process similar to the Tesla Roadster, I think expensive, possibly the cost of a new Roadster $250K...

The we need to consider the raw materials cost and the cost for high volume manufacture...

I think a Robot produced in high volume manufacturing might cost around the same as a Model 3, fewer raw materials, but some of them more expensive..
It would probably take a decade from the first low volume production to the final high volume product and perhaps 5 years to build the initial product...

But assume a Robot costs $50K to make and can work 20 hours per day for 10 years with minimal maintenance, consuming about the same amount of electricity as a car... Ignoring electricity, the Robot costs around $0.70 per hour

In Australia we import people from nearby pacific Island countries to do fruit-picking and similar manual work harvesting all kinds of crops...
There are lots of routine low wages jobs like that. which may be hard to fill in future...
If our pacific neighbours children get an education and good qualifications, maybe they don't want to do the menial work their parents were happy to do.

If it can take vegetables out of the refrigerator, clean them, chop them, and, ideally, combine them into something tasty, Tesla will sell plenty at $50k (and answer the door—that would be the bomb ). Lots of people would eat more vegetables if it wasn’t so labor intensive to make vegetarian dishes as compared to meat dishes (and that helps the mission right there).

Indeed I had a dinner guest recently who said she stopped being vegetarian and cooked more meat dishes for her family simply because it was easier (and nobody, ahem her hubby, appreciated it when she put in the effort to make more labor intensive dishes—vegetarian or otherwise I think she meant).

Does make you wonder if dining rooms will stage a comeback and great rooms fall out of fashion though.

 

[NicoV]

From its purpose perspective, making it a humanoid form makes a lot of sense. A lot of infrastructures, especially those "dangerous, boring and repetitive jobs" are designed for people to fit into it one way or the other so maintenance or work can be carried out. By designing a robot in the shape of the average human, it means that it can be programmed or "taught" to do all those jobs from day 1 without having to make any adjustments to the environment to accommodate the robot.

Indeed, just like the road system is based on vision (and FSD is now pure vision), the rest of the world is made to accommodate the human form factor. A robot in humanoid form is thus a better fit for that world than some non-humanoid robot form.

 

[SOULPEDL]

I'm curious ($), a learning machine, eh? What else could DOJO do? Predict weather? Game theory? CAD Designs?
Or are we thinking they rent it to take a massive amount of my videos of a camera mounted on a shovel so I'll never have to dig another trench?

 

[Drumheller]

I think we need to pose the additional question :- "How expensive will Robots be?"

In low volumes, built by a semi-automated process similar to the Tesla Roadster, I think expensive, possibly the cost of a new Roadster $250K...

The we need to consider the raw materials cost and the cost for high volume manufacture...

I think a Robot produced in high volume manufacturing might cost around the same as a Model 3, fewer raw materials, but some of them more expensive..
It would probably take a decade from the first low volume production to the final high volume product and perhaps 5 years to build the initial product...

But assume a Robot costs $50K to make and can work 20 hours per day for 10 years with minimal maintenance, consuming about the same amount of electricity as a car... Ignoring electricity, the Robot costs around $0.70 per hour

In Australia we import people from nearby pacific Island countries to do fruit-picking and similar manual work harvesting all kinds of crops...
There are lots of routine low wages jobs like that. which may be hard to fill in future...
If our pacific neighbours children get an education and good qualifications, maybe they don't want to do the menial work their parents were happy to do.

I think they can be priced much lower than that. The most expensive part of a tesla vehicle is the battery. At 125 pounds, there aren't many batteries in the robot. Vision can use same cameras as the vehicles. Other parts can be common mass produced components. Then there is the FSD computer. I think Tesla could get a basic robot to under $10,000 with mass production.

The software will be where they make money. Similar to video game console makers, Tesla could sell the robots at cost, or even at a loss, and make money selling software packages. Pick and choose what software licenses you want and it may all or most of it be subscription based.

$9999 for your robot, $200 a month in subscription fees. Could be a wide range depending on the software. Want a general laborer for doing landscaping? If you were paying a human $15 an hour, 40 hours a week, 4 weeks a month that's $2400 a month, not counting overhead.

This will bring to discussion the idea of universal basic income. I realize that is political, but Elon is right. That discussion is going to be needed in the next few years.

 

[22522]

I think we need to pose the additional question :- "How expensive will Robots be?"

In low volumes, built by a semi-automated process similar to the Tesla Roadster, I think expensive, possibly the cost of a new Roadster $250K...

The we need to consider the raw materials cost and the cost for high volume manufacture...

I think a Robot produced in high volume manufacturing might cost around the same as a Model 3, fewer raw materials, but some of them more expensive..
It would probably take a decade from the first low volume production to the final high volume product and perhaps 5 years to build the initial product...

But assume a Robot costs $50K to make and can work 20 hours per day for 10 years with minimal maintenance, consuming about the same amount of electricity as a car... Ignoring electricity, the Robot costs around $0.70 per hour

In Australia we import people from nearby pacific Island countries to do fruit-picking and similar manual work harvesting all kinds of crops...
There are lots of routine low wages jobs like that. which may be hard to fill in future...
If our pacific neighbours children get an education and good qualifications, maybe they don't want to do the menial work their parents were happy to do.

It is about $18K. The sensor set, computer and 60V battery string get you to $10K. The rest of the parts are motors and diecast/molded parts, maybe some Dynema...

Edit: I wonder how low the batteries could be if distributed into the legs, 4680 legs. Dynema tendons with active compensation for creep. Maybe thick ankles

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Since I can barely spell AI, I have been looking for some expert reactions on twitter. Here are a few. Do feel free to add any others you might come across, good or bad. Hopefully this can add more signal and less noise to the conversation.

First is from Lex Fridman:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1428540411807666178

A few from James Douma, who Dave lee interviewed a few times. I suppose this means his mind is blown, in a good way.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1428554155077951490

https://twitter.com/x/status/1428540794026090500

This guy green who i thought would have some comment on the new information, just has a long rant on tesla dropping radar w/ factchecking. Sad.

https://twitter.com/greentheonly

The autonomous FSD Forum has been weirdly silent. Not much on reddit machine learning or on the hacker news forums yet. Any other hot takes you folks are seeing?

I checked Greens Twitter and saw his posts……he’s clearly the type of person that would to go the grave defending his views even when they’re clearly wrong. Guy argues with people smarter than him in the field and just ignores peer critique.