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

[jerry33]

You have no idea how fast you are going if the screen is black. This is actually a big deal. I've had to reset the central screen while I was driving on the freeway more than once on my 3. This is not going to be acceptable when Tesla reaches large scale distribution and ownership.

A small independent heads up display with just the speed and PRND would solve this issue.

 

[AlexS]

You have no idea how fast you are going if the screen is black. This is actually a big deal. I've had to reset the central screen while I was driving on the freeway more than once on my 3. This is not going to be acceptable when Tesla reaches large scale distribution and ownership.

I hope they will introduce HUD for M3, it is not expensive at all.

 

[lklundin]

It looked unnatural in how a car moved, but it was amazing to see the accident (though likely light) averted. At the same time, I needed to be attentive too as the car behind it. I'm not totally sure how Tesla is going to work with cars behind it to avert scenarios where the model 3 is trying to deal with multiple potential collisions at the same time right now, but look forward to seeing what they do.

You answered the question yourself.

When driving behind someone, it is your responsibility to be able to stop in time when the driver in front of you decides to stop. (The word 'decides' is important, if the car in front of you stops abruptly due to it itself crashing in to something, then typically at least part of the blame is shifted forward from you - at least in Germany).

More important than blame is survival. So it is good to keep so much distance ahead of you that if you need to suddenly stop you leave yourself enough space in front of you to still be able to turn and move side ways. That way the texting trucker behind you kills one less. But I am unsure if or when an FSD can support such rare/hypothetical scenarios.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Don't want to jinx it but I'm pretty happy with stock performance today with the macro's in a decline for the past 3 hours from their high.

 

[EVMeister]

I'd probably be nervous driving with the black screen if for no other reason than that's where the speedometer is located. But I'd certainly Google the issue and if that didn't help, give Tesla a ring. I certainly wouldn't vent on Twitter as that is unconstructive.

 

[hobbes]

BTW., why doesn't Tesla release deliveries and production numbers together with Q1 financials?

The P&D report was only used to create FUD before, it's not like it's helping Tesla investors. No other consumer electronics firm is releasing such figures.

So why release it at all?

A while ago (I think before your were here) we were annoyed by having too little information and were quite happy to get the official numbers to stop the endless speculation and misinformation... Grass is always greener on the other side I guess .

 

[AlexS]

OT:



I don't think we can say that. There have been cars on display in all the stores as of December 2018, then there were test-drives all over Europe in Jan/Feb. Yes, so will have bought without a test drive but certainly not everyone.

Also OT: Norway deliveries still at 76 cars today...

Most cars in April are from delayed ship to Trondheim. Maybe someone knows how many cars were on that ship`?

 

[Swampgator]

You have no idea how fast you are going if the screen is black. This is actually a big deal. I've had to reset the central screen while I was driving on the freeway more than once on my 3. This is not going to be acceptable when Tesla reaches large scale distribution and ownership.

While not ideal I would think your surroundings and experience would tell you how fast you are going. I can certainly tell within about 10 mph what speed I'm driving without having to look at the screen.

 

[EVMeister]

While not ideal I would think your surroundings and experience would tell you how fast you are going. I can certainly tell within about 10 mph what speed I'm driving without having to look at the screen.

That's true, I can do this (especially at speeds of say 20 - 40mph). But it would still make me nervous. I'd probably just drive like a learner (no offence to confident learners), slow and steady to get back home.

 

[SebastianR]

Most cars in April are from delayed ship to Trondheim. Maybe someone knows how many cars were on that ship`?

Agree. However, just today a lot of Bergen, Oslo, Voss, Arendal, Stavanger in the mix, too. In fact, I would assume only 40% to 50% are from Trondheim & they delayed boat... I assume lots of folks just couldn't take delivery earlier.

 

[ZeApelido]

Anyone else getting this sort of feeling?

While some may mistakenly think KarenRei is implying there will be a sort of Trojan Horse opening a can of whooparse on the shorts coming, she really means that the shorts better buy some of these because they are about to get #$!!

 

[ZeApelido]

I wanted to explicitly thank you for posting this, it was very helpful in clarifying the process used to develop vision and neural nets. Going over it a bit in my head there are a few points that I think are worth noting:

• Implicitly, the neural net is a component of driving that is not just limited to "computer vision." In fact, from his presentation it wasn't even clear if such a distinction would be meaningful. This means that the uncertainty of neural nets is an essential component of Tesla AP/FSD and thus cannot be proven to be correct, only demonstrated to meet a probabilistic goal.
• People here make references to Tesla's huge data set, but he makes it clear that a huge data set is actually counterproductive (e.g., training for traffic lights if blue traffic lights make up <0.001% of the data will never truly be accounted for). The real issue is getting enough sample range for each edge case so that it can be trained for.
• While a traditional computing approach to computer vision was unworkable, the "software 2.0" approach is only better insofar as it is at least tractable. But that is small consolation when you realize that all you have done is shift the problem to one of getting sufficiently large, clean and accurate data set labeled to unleash your training optimizer on.
• It reinforces my belief that true FSD is not on the horizon, but that incremental gains that will benefit Tesla drivers will continue. His examples of problems were pretty trivial -- he wasn't having to reach at all to come up with edge cases that were difficult to handle. At the same time it is encouraging that they are actively trying to identify edge cases for labeling. As Tesla iterates by identifying more problems, using data collection campaigns on the fleet to generate relevant data sets, labeling the data, and then using that to train an improved neural net, AP/FSD will continue to improve via OTA.
• Tesla's homegrown interface for data labeling probably represents the first significant step in "real" neural net programming. I used the quotes because it isn't like neural nets are new, but -- no offense to prior work on language, vision or to AlphaGo and relations -- if he is correct in describing Tesla's interface as being equivalent to an IDE it's rather like the field is starting to grow up.

What does this mean for Tesla, its investors and $TSLA?

I think it is the clearest and most convincing demonstration of Tesla's lead in FSD. Dog and pony shows are easy. But having the internals to grow and support the development of something as significant and difficult as FSD -- that is real. Of course, it isn't flashy and doesn't get attention. I expect the upcoming to dog and pony show to provide some of that -- but I don't expect it to be showy or flashy. No "this car drove from New York to get here" silliness (who would be convinced by showing an arrival anyway?).
I've seen comments by people who do not have a Tesla that they don't understand how AP can make driving easier when you are constantly having to monitor the car and pay attention to traffic. I get that from someone who has not experienced it -- they think AP is some Rube Goldberg contraption that is a circus sideshow freak. Alternatively, there is a belief that AP is fundamentally flawed and unsafe, but drivers will be tricked into a false sense of security and lose situational awareness.

The upcoming FSD show-and-tell is, I believe, to get influential people the hands-on experience that will make them believers. Belief that this is a solid solution and that it is safe. They will then use their influence to spread the word about how Tesla's FSD works.

If there is glitz, a fireworks display, a laserlight show, I will be surprised as those elements are not necessary for this. Audi needed that for the e-tron launch because what else was going to sell it?

What is necessary is a compelling drive in a car that drives on its own. What will work best is to demonstrate that Tesla's approach is not constrained by the impressive caveats faced by Waymo, Cruise, et al, but even if it is a solid demonstration of something technically achievable by Waymo -- as long as it is solid that will improve Tesla's autonomy credibility.

And if Tesla gains some credibility in the autonomous driving arena that should be reflected in stock price. Whether or not that happens, it will drive uptake of AP and FSD and advertise for more sales of Tesla cars.

BTW I totally nailed it back in 2017, Karpathy hinted to more "software 2.0" where NNets not just for perception.

All pats on the back are welcome.

 

[JustAaronnoraA]

Words from the Press are production numbers are rolling in? AH announcement?

 

[JustAaronnoraA]

While some may mistakenly think KarenRei is implying there will be a sort of Trojan Horse opening a can of whooparse on the shorts coming, she really means that the shorts better buy some of these because they are about to get #$!!

Numbers are rolling in, so STRAP ON! (no pun intended /s !)

 

[Drumheller]

Why would Telsa give numbers to the press before market close and instead of posting them online? Doesn't seem logical to me.

 

[Duffer]

Yeah, but AI's are expected to handle it perfectly, especially if they are Tesla AIs.

I agree that it's not fair and is discriminatory, but this won't be resolved until ~2050 when the first AI is going to gain legal personhood. (It will be an AI forged by Musk Industries as it happens.)

I thought someone said that there was a picture, that was purported to be, @KarenRei in human form? If so, legal personhood should happen much sooner.

Well, soon after the swap, they can sell - if they don't like Tesla.

Problem is if they think somehow they can force Tesla to offer more.

Or that they should remain as a stand alone company so they can make more money licensing their technology to everyone.

 

[ZachF]

It's been hovering at $292.50 for a while now

 

[tinm]

Psst... blue horseshoe loves Tesla

we hope

 

[JustAaronnoraA]

Why would Telsa give numbers to the press before market close and instead of posting them online? Doesn't seem logical to me.

Doesn’t necessarily give the press numbers literally but give them a head up that PD annoucement come AH to prepare.

 

[replicant]

I don't understand why we only talk about Tesla's huge data set vs Waymo by comparing their fleets, when Google gets millions of people doing free labelling works through Recaptcha. Daily. They've been collecting the data for many years already.

Just today, I had to detect, locate and label dozens of bridges, stop signs, cars, traffic lights, trucks, etc against my will. Just so I could login into an account, fill in a form, enable a feature, or access a webpage.

Tesla don't have that power.