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

[Antares Nebula]

Virtually all have the same basic shape - an airfoil. Not just on the flight surfaces, but the fuselage itself is a teardrop, e.g. an airfoil rotated on an axis.

Many cars, however, ignore this basic rule of aerodynamic efficiency. And they suffer for it.

Doesn't mean that the differences in shape aren't sufficient enough to make some look nicer than others. Aesthetics are not limited by functionality as the original OP posited. There are other considerations.

All cars have a basic shape. All houses have a basic shape. All pens have a basic shape. And so on. Yes function determines form. But not entirely.

 

[generalenthu]

Orthopedic doctors save lives?

Eric Heiden - > copious doper - > orthopedic surgeon. Just saying ​

Alright. if you are joking about a customer service issue, you're clearly not neroden.

 

[lascavarian]

Just finished the almost 2 hours of Rex Fridman's interview with George Hotz. It is unfortunate that it is so long, there is a lot in it.

Most amusing was Hotz's comment that he had been offered $12 million (I think by EM) to develop a vision system in a month. Every month after the first month the payment was to be reduced by a $million. If not done in a year then he gets nothing. Interesting incentive so front end loaded

Hotz is an interesting personality particularly in comparison to EM. Vastly different approaches that deliver results. He is supportive of Tesla's approach over others and he (through COMMA, AI and OpenPilot) intends to be a close second to level 5 autonomy. He thinks the real business opportunity is insurance and that AI and autonomy is likely to be disruptive to the existing insurance structure.

Others have posted about this and thanks for that.

George Hotz: Comma.ai, OpenPilot, and Autonomous Vehicles | MIT | Artificial Intelligence Podcast

 

[JRP3]

Could this also be true for airplanes? Yet there are a myriad different airplane shapes. Some butt ugly, Some sexy.

And they are optimizing for different characteristics. Tesla is optimizing for efficiency while also trying to provide usable interior space as well as acceptable aesthetics. I'd say they've done quite well.

 

[Unpilot]

I agree they should have just replaced the tire and I'm sorry for your experience. But it's probably against their official policy.

Here is the thing.....Tesla is different because ...well they are different (bear with me) Official policy should be at the discretion of the person in charge. Official policy is not applicable in all cases.
In the case we are talking about when a person is buying their 6th ...or is it 7th Tesla....this SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.

Good will once lost cost way a lot more to regain.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Virtually all have the same basic shape - an airfoil. Not just on the flight surfaces, but the fuselage itself is a teardrop, e.g. an airfoil rotated on an axis.

For your viewing consideration, ugly and not so ugly airfoils:

The 13 all-time ugliest airplanes

Top 25 Most Beautiful Airplanes

 

[Prunesquallor]

Sad day for me. I've been a Tesla Bull and supporter since I bought my first Model S in 2013. Since then I've invested half my retirement in the company, and purchased 6 Tesla vehicles. I've defended Tesla when people were critical of Tesla's customer service, and laughed at NADA when they said franchise dealerships protect customers. Well, I'm now on the bad end of a Tesla service issue. My order for my 6th Tesla, a Raven Model S with Ludicrous, kept getting delayed because of errors. Frustrated, I went to the store only to see the car I had ordered on the lot. I was told it was a new test drive vehicle. I eventually learned that the VIN had been assigned to me, but then somehow it ended up as a store vehicle, and I had been assigned a new VIN, which unfortunately had the wrong interior, so I was going to be delayed again. To avoid further delays, I agreed to take delivery of the test drive vehicle since it still had low miles (I was not given any discount because it had low miles). I noticed a few scratches and other things and sent the punch list to the Delivery specialist, who made notes and said it would be taken care of. I also noticed the right rear tire pressure was low on the drive home, but did not mention that in the first 24 hours because I assumed it was just inflated less than the other tires. I added air and thought it was fine. A week later, I had to add a little more air - not a lot, but some. Another week later, the same thing. At this point, I started thinking there must be a nail in the tire, even though the car had low miles, and with difficulty, found a well hidden nail deep in the tread. This obviously explains why the tire was low on the drive home - the car picked up a nail on the test drives before I purchased the car. This is the most logical explanation. Tesla is telling me that because of the location of the nail, the tire needs to be replaced, and I have to pay for it. I explained that the nail must have been there from the beginning because that tire was low when I drove home. But they say that since there was no mention of it immediately, they can't take my word for it. In other words, I, a physician who saves people for a living, and has spent over half a million dollars on Tesla vehicles, is potentially LYING about a nail in my $300 tire. Therefore, they can not replace it for free. This is in contrast to my experience with my local Porsche franchised dealer, who in 2012 replaced all the rotors and pads on my 6-month-old 911S that I had tracked 4 times and burned up the brakes, because they wanted to make sure I was a happy customer. My mind is BLOWN. I took this to the highest level at the Salt Lake Store, and got nowhere. I asked for a number for a supervisor in California, and I was told to send an email to customerescalations@Tesla. I will send the email, but holy cow am I disappointed and angry. If an electric Porsche 911 is ever made, you bet your a$$ I'm buying it if it doesn't suck.

P.S. - All this happened after I arrived at the airport on my day off to fly. First rule of aviation is don't fly if you are sick/distracted. There was no way I could climb into the cockpit and not think about all this, so I ended up having to just drive home. Thanks for ruining my day off as well.

Response deleted. I was out of line.

 

[Antares Nebula]

And they are optimizing for different characteristics. Tesla is optimizing for efficiency while also trying to provide usable interior space as well as acceptable aesthetics. I'd say they've done quite well.

I agree, but I bet I would look a lot nicer if the Y and X were on their own platform. Not saying that Tesla had to do this. It was a cost and time to market trade off. Perhaps in the future, when sufficiently capitalized, they will.

 

[JRP3]

I agree, but I bet I would look a lot nicer if the Y and X were on their own platform. Not saying that Tesla had to do this. It was a cost and time to market trade off. Perhaps in the future, when sufficiently capitalized, they will.

I hope they don't because it's inefficient. I also disagree that they would look "a lot nicer" on their own platforms. The majority of the "look" is the cabin height and shape, which is dictated by aerodynamics and required interior volume. If you want a boxy SUV look then you'll have to give up a lot of range, or wait for cheaper and more energy dense cell technology.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Absolutely true with airplanes. Because the power needed to push an airplane through the air increases as the cube of velocity, you can play around with all kinds of semi ugly shapes with slow airplanes. Some look like the box they came in. All because drag at low speeds is less of a deal. You will notice, though, that nearly all high-speed airplanes tend to look a lot alike. They were forced to shed their ugliness.along the way around the airspeed indicator.
Robin

This is true, but it's all relative. You can still have ugly and not so ugly looking supersonics. Look at rockets: their basic shape is pretty much fixed. Again, as you point out due to high speed considerations. Yet, there are sufficient aesthetic considerations possible so that you can still have ugly and not so ugly looking rockets. SpaceX Starship anyone?

Pick virtually any category of physical things, you can still have vast variations in beauty and aesthetics. Look at biological species. They have evolved for their specific environments and niches and competitive pressures. Yet aesthetic variations abound. Take human beings as a prime example. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but even any single beholder would assign a range of different beauty levels to a random population of human beings.

There is always room for aesthetic considerations in design. Otherwise, we would only need engineers and no more designers.

Please don't tell Franz von Holzhausen that the X and Y designs were pre-determined and that his skills were unnecessary!

 

[anthonyj]

Futures ripping

 

[Antares Nebula]

I hope they don't because it's inefficient. I also disagree that they would look "a lot nicer" on their own platforms. The majority of the "look" is the cabin height and shape, which is dictated by aerodynamics and required interior volume. If you want a boxy SUV look then you'll have to give up a lot of range, or wait for cheaper and more energy dense cell technology.

I think even Elon would disagree with you. As I pointed out, if cost wasn't a consideration, Elon wanted to put X and Y on their own platform.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Futures ripping

??

I'm seeing flat to down now.

Premarket Stock Trading - CNNMoney

 

[anthonyj]

??

I'm seeing flat to down now.

Premarket Stock Trading - CNNMoney

That’s delayed

 

[Opus BC fan]

I was literally one of the first Tesla owners in Salt Lake City. I showed it to all my doctor friends at the hospital, and neighbors near home. I gave a lot of test drives. Now the physician parking lot is full of Teslas, and I see them around my house. There is no question that I helped speed up the penetration of Tesla here, so to imply 6 years later that I could be lying about my tire leaking from the beginning is a giant stab in the back.

OT
I had a similar experience a few years ago -- the tire pressure sensors stopped communicating with the car and I was accused of having changed out the tire sensors-- because they didn't look like Tesla's. I looked up pictures of the 2012 Tesla sensors on the internet and showed it to them. My service rep said she still "didn't believe me" but reluctantly replaced them free of charge. I responded by talking to the service manager and said I would never deal with that rep again. I also emphasized that my relationship with the company was paramount to me.

I have never seen her again. In the last two years, my experiences with the SC have all been stellar. I attributed the experience to growing pains. Sorry to hear about your experience. I do hope they make it up to you over time.

edit: deleted my last sentence as no longer relevant...

 

[Antares Nebula]

Maybe due to this:

China sets the yuan midpoint at 7.0039 per dollar, weakest since April 2008

But now I'm confused. Isn't this what caused the market to crash Monday?

Is it now that bad news is good news, or what?

 

[Antares Nebula]

I think all the pro traders are f***ing with retail. Just like today, crash pre market and then up.

Tomorrow? Rip pre market and then crash in the regular session. Book it!

 

[Krugerrand]

Really sorry to hear. Tesla needs to understand that S and X are differentiated products and learn to treat those customers better, like how Lexus does.

Tesla casually replaced my model 3 tire with a nail, when it was unrepairable, and charged me for a flat because they initially told me it could be fixed. I'd have paid if Tesla wanted. Another time, I damaged my radar when I tapped another car ahead of me (FCW went off, etc). Repaired under warranty.

So on one hand they don't even look like they are trying to save money. On the other hand they're trying to piss off the evangelists.

I think it just has to do with the employee. Not all employees are created equally. Not all know how to make the ‘right’ decision based on a full understanding of all information.

You need an employee that proactively looks up a customer’s history and makes logical, reasonable and discerning decisions. And has the authority to follow through.

 

[generalenthu]

Just finished the almost 2 hours of Rex Fridman's interview with George Hotz. It is unfortunate that it is so long, there is a lot in it.

Most amusing was Hotz's comment that he had been offered $12 million (I think by EM) to develop a vision system in a month. Every month after the first month the payment was to be reduced by a $million. If not done in a year then he gets nothing. Interesting incentive so front end loaded

Hotz is an interesting personality particularly in comparison to EM. Vastly different approaches that deliver results. He is supportive of Tesla's approach over others and he (through COMMA, AI and OpenPilot) intends to be a close second to level 5 autonomy. He thinks the real business opportunity is insurance and that AI and autonomy is likely to be disruptive to the existing insurance structure.

Others have posted about this and thanks for that.

George Hotz: Comma.ai, OpenPilot, and Autonomous Vehicles | MIT | Artificial Intelligence Podcast

It was hard to get started, but was an amazing interview once it started flowing. The most mindblowing conclusion, and I am still reeling from it comes 3/4 of the way into it.

He convinces Lex Fridman (and me) that it is impossible to convert a visual representation of the world into a human understandable map of objects and their trajectories and then derive the driving policy from it, to become a level 5 system. That's not how our brain works and once you come to this conclusion, your entire view of how FSD will come to pass will be turned on it's head. And it will seem obvious.

I won't spoil it here, but go watch the video. Terrific stuff. He does urge Elon to start driver monitoring, and I am ambivalent about it.

Spoiler: Ok, I'll spoil it

Humans look at some situations and though they don't see anything, they intuitively get cautious. Hotz talks about a bush, at an intersection, and we expect some car may jump from behind it and we know it's a possibility. A better known example is you'd want to brake for a ball, because a kid might be running after it.

I have a sharp left on my way home where I have to stop, lean forward, check traffic from the left, and make the left uncomfortably fast, because the cross traffic is high speed and i can see down only about 100 ft. I think that will be almost impossible for FSD because the side cameras are on the B pillar and they certainly can't lean forward. Or a mirror needs to go up at the intersection.

So the driving policy in situations like these cannot be physics based, but rather be informed by neural nets, and hence the FSD has to be an end to neural net. This is also a reason why Waymo's approach is a dead end.

Enough already. Did I tell you to go watch the video?

 

[StealthP3D]

Here is the thing.....Tesla is different because ...well they are different (bear with me) Official policy should be at the discretion of the person in charge. Official policy is not applicable in all cases.
In the case we are talking about when a person is buying their 6th ...or is it 7th Tesla....this SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.

Well, that's your opinion but you state it as fact. I think about things differently from you and I don't really like paying for people who want things for free. We have no idea where that nail came from and I can see this going either way. I like situations like this to be dealt with in a predictable way. I don't want to be treated overly generously because I'm tall and white or discriminated against for the same reason (or because I'm a short, fat dark-skinned woman with a limited budget). I like doing businesses with companies that have strong, fair and predictable policies that they actually adhere to and that have low mark-ups (made possible hopefully in part due to their strong but fair policies).

It makes perfect sense to me that Tesla implemented stronger and more clearly defined policies as their customer base grew larger. It was last year that people were "discovering" minor scratches, dents and scuffs in the paint and bodywork days (and in some cases weeks) after delivery and were adamant they did not occur after delivery. The reality is there is no way to tell. So Tesla implemented the "two-day rule" (or was it one or three days, I don't remember). I'm not sure exactly what the time-frame is because I look at the cars before signing the papers and that's good enough for me. Someone here probably paid closer attention than I did and can tell us exactly how long you have to claim pre-delivery damage. Is it 24 hours? And a nail in the tire probably follows under the same policy because it's impossible to tell when the damage happened, especially a week later.

My wifes LR RWD Model 3 lost one pound of air per week from the right front tire. I added a couple pounds every two weeks and kept looking for a small puncture but none could be found. Eventually, I rotated it to the back and it only lost one pound every month. Now it doesn't lose any. Had she picked up a nail during that timeframe, we might have assumed the nail was in there all along. The fact is, cars get scratches, dents and flats every day of the year. A longer "mulligan" period just means that we all pay for other peoples carelessness or bad luck. I would rather have a policy that pre-delivery damage must be noted at delivery. However, since some deliveries were happening before the sun had risen (or after it had set) it makes sense to let people take them home and look them over for a day or so. But to think Tesla should repair any damage discovered in the first week (or longer), just because the customer is convinced it was pre-existing damage is perhaps not the strongest policy.

Good will once lost cost way a lot more to regain.

While I agree with that, I don't think reasonable customers should have a problem with the rule that pre-delivery damage must be noted within the given timeframe. And what business wants to deal with unreasonable customers who are only happy if the business gives them freebies they are not entitled to under the companies fair and clearly stated policies. If you are accustomed to stealerships who bend the rules to "treat you right", just be aware that they are not coddling you because they like you or they are trying to give you an extra good deal, it's because they think they can overcharge you enough in the future to make up for whatever it costs them to give you a "mulligan". It's always rubbed me the wrong way. I just want to be treated in a fair and predictable manner.