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

[EVNow]

Yes. Developers love writing code, hate writing release notes.

Not PMs.

 

[Todd Burch]

Not PMs.

I personally write the release notes for all of our code. I include improvements AND bug fixes (although we, ahem, never write any bugs.) Gives me the warm fuzzies.

If I had a cool "get rear-ended and avoid frontal damage by swerving" functionality, I'd be bragging about it in blog posts from here to kingdom-come. I think Elon would too (and rightly so).

I WANT TO BELIEVE

 

[dww12]

I don't think this is entirely true. I think Elon is a great salesman and was hyping it up for the cap raise. Elon also gets stuck on fads like alien dreadnought at times then then when he realizes the problem is much harder than he estimated he takes a more measured tone.

I think Elon has had the robotaxi in mind since the inception of the Model 3. Why else make a “million mile car” if you are not going to use it. Doesn’t that make Sandy Munos comment about the chassis being way overbuilt make more sense, or why the dash is centered?

 

[Todd Burch]

I think Elon has had the robotaxi in mind since the inception of the Model 3. Why else make a “million mile car” if you are not going to use it. Doesn’t that make Sandy Munos comment about the chassis being way overbuilt make more sense, or why the dash is centered?

The display is centered (at least partly) for ease of assembly and cost reduction purposes. That's DFA (design for assembly) in engineering speak. Less differences between LHD and RHD versions of the car.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Was "fate loves irony" an anagram? It's easy to get "fiat" out of that, and "elon" could be in there too.

looney fiats rev
fiat levy sooner
very elon so fiat

These don't make as much sense as I'd like, though.

Fiat lover? Yes/no?
I, Elon, so very fat.
A fit onesy lover
Elon revs Fiat, yo.
EV (toy for aliens)

 

[anthonyj]

BlackBerry's Famous Last Words At 2007 iPhone Launch: 'We'll Be Fine'

*this is relevant*

 

[Carl Raymond]

I don't think this is entirely true. I think Elon is a great salesman and was hyping it up for the cap raise. Elon also gets stuck on fads like alien dreadnought at times then then when he realizes the problem is much harder than he estimated he takes a more measured tone.

Have you seen the wheels n tyres being put on a model 3 recently? I don’t think the dreadnaught was ever shelved, just arriving slowly, project by project.

 

[azaz]

Have you seen the wheels n tyres being put on a model 3 recently? I don’t think the dreadnaught was ever shelved, just arriving slowly, project by project.

just like robotaxis...slowly piece by piece

 

[Skryll]

Have you seen the wheels n tyres being put on a model 3 recently? I don’t think the dreadnaught was ever shelved, just arriving slowly, project by project.

What do you mean? Whats special about them?

 

[Maitri982]

Mobileye simply does not have the driving data from from millions of miles driven with 8 cameras inputs and radar. For CNN's the data volume in is what matters. Labeled data especially. On top of that there is some secret sauce around how to deal with things like low frequency edge cases that Karpathy has acknowledged but they have been mute on how they are handling it. So I think he has a solution but they are keeping it to themselves.

Apple can design a chip in c.3 years best case - so it depends how soon they are willing to admit their mistake and copy Tesla. Apple currently seem to be very Lidar heavy so I don't see how they get their product into consumer's vehicles without starting again - and any chip they design now would be handicapped by optimisation for Lidar.

Normally design to manufacture cycle in the auto industry is 5-6 years, maybe they can accelerate that a few years to integrate hardware from Waymo/Apple, but it is very difficult to change the culture and practices of an industry that has been stagnant for 50 years. Its also hard to persuade a conservative auto company to give you all their data and control of their customers vehicles. The partnerships will be complicated by who owns the data and who profits from the software it builds - an auto company will not give this away for free.

Mobileye is potentially in the best position to start copying Tesla's data heavy approach, given they are already a Vision first company with partnerships with many auto companies. But they don't have the computing power in their hardware (EyeQ5 not out until 1Q21 and even then doesn't look nearly powerful enough), they don't have radar/ultrasonics, they don't normally control the prediction/driving policy algorithms, and they are not able to collect much data from their hardware once rolled out (so far they only collect some mapping data, whether this is due to contractual or technological limitations I don't know).

But i agree eventually there will be other players copying Tesla's strategy, but Tesla's 2-4 year head start is extremely valuable - particularly if they continue to move at a faster pace.
I've discussed before why I think first mover in Robotaxis should make an insane amount of money in the first few years (until there are 3-5 million on the roads globally, there is no incentive to price below the c.$2.5 per mile average Uber/Lyft price - based on Uber's prices and Uber's implied passenger miles %, a Tesla Robotaxi would make $150k gross profit per year until the market starts to get saturated), and why there is a good chance the first mover can maintain a significant % of the industry's profits for the long term.

 

[Maitri982]

Good grief. Underestimating the competition by making ridiculous assumptions does not lead to investing success.

If anyone is interested in a non-hysterical discussion of LIDAR vs. camera only, Brad Templeton is a TSLA shareholder and Model S owner who worked on robotaxis before any of us ever heard the term. You can also access this and other articles from his excellent blog.

Um...Brad had vested interest in lidar company. He is not unbiased.

 

[powertoold]

I think Elon has had the robotaxi in mind since the inception of the Model 3. Why else make a “million mile car” if you are not going to use it. Doesn’t that make Sandy Munos comment about the chassis being way overbuilt make more sense, or why the dash is centered?

I think Elon had the robotaxi in mind ever since the first Model S. Over the air update capability is the foundation of robotaxi.

 

[Carl Raymond]

What do you mean? Whats special about them?

No human in sight. I can’t say others don’t have this, but I have seen one other vid where the wheel nut machine was human guided (Audi factory). I figured it represented progress for Tesla given it reached YouTube. Sorry, I did go back looking for the vid but could not find.

 

[EVNow]

Um...Brad had vested interest in lidar company. He is not unbiased.

Finally, the point is not about Lidar or/and vision.

The question is how is anyone going to deal with edge cases. Lots and lots of them, to make FSD highly reliable.

If a lot of data is needed to handle edge cases, how does one get the data? Tesla’s solution is to put the sensors in all cars and get the data. Waymo’s is to simulate.

 

[madodel]

I think Elon had the robotaxi in mind ever since the first Model S. Over the air update capability is the foundation of robotaxi.

And automated charging. I just can't fathom a car being automatically being gassed up with no human intervention. All gasoline cars will have to travel to New Jersey to get fueled. (explanation: New Jersey is as far as I know the only state that outlaws self-service gas pumps. Not my problem anymore but I always found it annoying to have to sit at a gas station in NJ waiting for an attendant to put the nozzle in the car. They also had a nasty habit of pumping more gas than the tank could hold just to get to an even dollar amount to avoid change.)

 

[ZeApelido]

I’ve been watching Musk in just about everything since the late 2000s.

I have never seen him more assertive and confident (and more frustrated that others don’t see it) than at the autonomy event.

I know but what about Karpathy?

 

[Bladerskb]

Mobileye is potentially in the best position to start copying Tesla's data heavy approach, given they are already a Vision first company with partnerships with many auto companies. But they don't have the computing power in their hardware (EyeQ5 not out until 1Q21 and even then doesn't look nearly powerful enough), they don't have radar/ultrasonics, they don't normally control the prediction/driving policy algorithms, and they are not able to collect much data from their hardware once rolled out (so far they only collect some mapping data, whether this is due to contractual or technological limitations I don't know).

Actually EyeQ5 will be out Q1 2020 and currently Mobileye beats Tesla in development and deployment of neural net models. When you compare the NN in eyeq4 and what Tesla currently has in production. Its not even close.

Secondly, Its actually been Tesla that has been copying Mobileye from the very start, the tri-focal camera invented and patented by mobileye. The 8 camera configuration system also invented and patented by mobileye. There has to be dozens of mobileye patents that Tesla is using.

Mobileye literally has almost all the computer vision patents for self driving cars out there. For example the path prediction you saw Tesla show in their Autonomy Day is a mobileye patent. The only one doing any copying is Tesla. Mobileye copies no one.

Thirdly Mobileye does have their own complete system with 360 Vision, Mapping and Driving Policy with RSS Safety Envelope that they will start offering..

Lastly EyeQ5 is more efficient than Tesla's FSD chip.

and any chip they design now would be handicapped by optimisation for Lidar.

There is no such thing, the amount of misinformation being posted in this thread is astonishing. I initially attempted to correct some of them, but there's just too many.

 

[renim]

a point about data

A Chinese official explained how the country’s electric-car surveillance works

China’s electric cars are government spies

 

[Carl Raymond]

I think Elon had the robotaxi in mind ever since the first Model S. Over the air update capability is the foundation of robotaxi.

Uploading consciousness to an existing stock of synthetic humans is a theme of the tv series ‘humans’, first aired in 2015. Was Elon a friend of the scriptwriter?

List of Humans episodes - Wikipedia

Watching it again. Seems more real now, with NNs becoming a part of life. Next time you are near a Google Home, ask it “do you use a neural net?” I was surprised to hear the reply “Yes, it’s how I understand what you are saying”.

 

[Mike Smith]

Elon Musk Confirms He Bought $25 Million in Tesla Stock Last Week