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Because:
  • Most railway companies do not operate in a competitive environment, costs can be transferred to customers or to governments, and there's little growth and little overall innovation. Big railway projects with halo products like the TGV exist, but are generally driven by national interests, not profit seeking.
  • Railway crews are generally unionized, which will resist workforce reduction. Here's an article about the NYC Subway scuttling plans to halve the per train crew from 2 to 1: "the Transportation Workers' Union, which represents New York's subway workers, fought to restore two-person crews."
  • On large trains, compared to the average number of passengers, the amount of cargo and the value of the vehicle the labor cost is a comparatively small cost. For taxi passenger service wages are the main cost factor.
Good summary. Taxis have a lobby which resists workforce reduction too. So do truck drivers.

The third one is the killer factor: it makes sense to hire a train crew for hundreds of passengers, and the labor cost will be a comparatively small part of the trip's total costs.

But for taxi services, the average number of passengers is only ~1.4, and it requires a dedicated driver who will idle about ~50% of the time even in relatively busy metro regions.

I.e. the utilization of taxi drivers is very poor: one taxi driver is transporting only one passengers on average if we consider idle time.

So even if we assumed a competitive environment for trains (which it isn't in most markets), eliminating the driver for passenger cars via FSD is a more than 100x times higher cost advantage than for trains. (!)

Basically, because road transport is so much less efficient than train transport, the labor cost overhead amounts to a much higher percentage; the trains can afford the waste more than the trucks and cars. That's what you're saying here, right?

Plausible. I'm not sure you're entirely right, though. The fact is that in metro systems, they've discovered they can *quadruple train frequency* by eliminating drivers, which has pretty impressive results. Car traffic is constrained by road capacity, so I don't see a similar operational efficiency savings...

Well-paid unionized drivers are a dominant factor in costs of train operation. It is considered economically important by all the government passenger transport agencies and by all the private freight operators. If labor costs are actually even more dominant in car operations, despite the drivers being paid a lot worse... that's interesting. I'd have to dig into this...
 
Does that generally happen whilst driving? Or is this stuff you could've cleared before setting off? Not being snarky, just curious.
I do get a message "bad weather ahead AP ability reduced" or something like that I can't remember the exact message.
I get this when I am driving and it is snowing or one time when truck passed me and sprayed a ton of water my way.

Usually this clears up in a few miles.
 
Note that @luvb2b actually got Q3 mostly right.

Yes, the estimates are intentionally conservative, because:
  • There are a lot of discretionary decisions by Tesla management that are unpredictable to us.
  • There are a lot more moving parts in Q1 than measurable parameters, so we are guessing. One big question are the AP and FSD upgrades, the other the Model Y order cash flow. We also don't know the FCA schedule.
There are so many unpredictable wild cards that I refused to guess Q1 numbers. In addition to the above, we don't really know their production cost changes, severance costs, TE ramp-up, financing decisions (for cash flow), accounts payable and receivable details (for cash flow) etc. etc.
 
  • There are ~10 billion neurons in the human visual cortex
  • Each neuron recieves ~10,000 synaptic inputs
  • Each synapse requires ~10 FLOPS based on a 1 Hz firing rate
  • Thus: ~10 G neurons x 10 K synapses x 10 FLOPS = 1 PFLOP
Also HW3 (FSD Computer) is actually approximately 80-100 TOPS. This will be confirmed when its more in the wide and someone can crack it open.

So you’re saying FSD won’t be able to compose symphonies?

Then what ? Will the car take them to their destination ? If not, it would be a dud. Even if that destination is 2 blocks away, it would be hailed a success.

Of course they can enter the destination. Although I would assume it would be a pre planned one?
 
TMC has implemented an AI bot that helps place ads on the forums in relation to elon’s Twitter mood. Bravo. #nextlevel


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Agreed. I don't get why people scream for a Model S/X refresh. Based on the Master Plan it's clear that the main purpose of these vehicles was to enable the Model 3 to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. Sure there will be a Model S/X refresh some time, but it's not urgent from a mission PoV.

The mission requires money. Lots of money. Gigafactories and infrastructure are expensive.

Tesla can't appropriate money by taxing people.

It must come through profits. Lots of profits.

Gen II at 100k units per year generate ~$2.5B gross profits.

People must actually buy BEVs to accomplish the mission.

Gen II vehicles make BEVs cool and desirable. Even to people who don't give a rats ass about the mission.

People must actually buy Teslas too. If Gen II sales are imploding it appears Tesla is careening toward bankruptcy. It makes Model 3 prospective buyers less likely to actually buy a Model 3. Because they are worried Tesla may not be there to service, offer parts, and back the warranty.
 
Whether or not Tesla is considering a spin-off, I would love them to give a business plan as if they were trying to convince venture capitalists to invest in a new company.

I would like to see:
  • What does the infrastructure look like? What about charging? Vehicle cleaning?...
  • Timelines.
  • Does it have remote operators? If so, how often will they need to take over and how quickly can that be reduced
  • What initial rates are they going to charge the customer and how will that evolve?
  • Per mile cost breakdown.
  • Would you develop a cheaper robo-taxi without the unnecessary Model 3 and Model Y stuff? (I personally would like to see a very nice one seater commuter special with plush ride, fully reclining seat... This should be way more efficient and cheaper to build).
  • Detailed comparison to Waymo et. al. to really show Tesla’s cost advantage from manufacturing the vehicles, charging infrastructure, cheaper sensor suite...
  • How will you do mapping? Will it be pre-mapped like Waymo at first and then transition to crowd sourced maps?
 
Mine has been very very good, but I am not in dense highway traffic in Appleton, WI. Here, it is functioning at level 3 with the occasional time where the car makes a couple of tries before changing lanes or even aborts the lane change. That's rare though now. What will the car do when there is bumper to bumper traffic in the lane the car wants into and no one is letting it in? Has anyone seen how it gets it done?
Weekend humor (tongue-in-cheek)

Attach Boring Co flamethrowers to front and rear of Teslas to 'generate spacial motivation' in the minds of those other drivers?
 
  • Funny
Reactions: neroden
How is it 1.5 billion miles per year if only 0.01% are uploading according to verygreen? I don't understand?
Validation? Sure definitely...Raw collection? huh?

Because if active and there’s no intervention, there’s no need to upload.

Granted, currently Tesla is not uploading every intervention. As they switch to the new HW and the more advanced neural network, they will upload as much as they feel they need to in order to correct their network.

Edit: My bad, I see that you were asking about raw collection of data.