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I was surprised that a crane could move 6 pieces of steel from the ground to the correct place in the structure in a single lift like a string of beads. See 3rd from the left.View attachment 652833
Yeah, this is the most I've seen in one lift. To be clear, only the lowest piece gets installed, then it is detached (or the slack is enough to not bother immediately) and the process repeats. Six individual placements with less total rigging/ swinging steps.
 
Yeah, this is the most I've seen in one lift. To be clear, only the lowest piece gets installed, then it is detached (or the slack is enough to not bother immediately) and the process repeats. Six individual placements with less total rigging/ swinging steps.
Yes, it is catch place, catch place, catch place, catch place, catch place, catch place lift. I would guess the beams have tooling posts for proper registration, then enough quick attach to make the structure safe to finish bolt or weld.
 
Won't @The Accountant 's bullish numbers in this public forum raise expectations and undermine the advantage of actual bullish numbers on the SP?

I just saw someone post the Bloomberg Q1 estimate on Twitter:
Although my Q1 Non-GAAP estimate of $0.84 is higher than consensus 0.755, I am lower than Jonas $0.89 and Ives $0.97.
Pierre Ferragu is at $0.76 but that estimate was on March 9th when Pierre was estimating deliveries of 164k. With deliveries actually 20k higher, I assume Pierre will increase his Q1 earnings estimate.

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I just saw someone post the Bloomberg Q1 estimate on Twitter:
Although my Q1 Non-GAAP estimate of $0.84 is higher than consensus ($0.755), I am lower than Jonas ($0.89) and Ives ($0.97).
Pierre Ferragu is at $0.76 but that estimate was on March 9th when Pierre was estimating deliveries of 164k. With deliveries actually 20k higher, I assume Pierre will increase his Q1 earnings estimate.

View attachment 652850
GLJ gets closest unit estimate, but will likely be lowest EPS. Fabricating bear theories is a magical art form. /s
 
I don’t know what this is, but I expect I will want it.

Cool. I’ve been noodling about a tent attachment that would snap or zip into the bed cover so when that is raised, a sleeping area is created in the truck bed, and the rest unrolls into a sitting area on the ground. Could be made of insulated material so entire tent would be climate-controlled powered by the batteries or hook-up. For departure, just roll it up and stuff it in the bed.
 
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not gonna happen 10% import tax kills logic of importing if Berlin is running. Norway/Swiss could be option as they don't have import taxes on cars (EVs?)
UK/EU trade deal hasn't been ratified yet, running on a provisional/temporary basis.

According to European Parliament to ratify UK trade deal in late April, president says we will know by 26th April 2021 if Brexit trade deal is ratified (article suggests it will be), and temporary situation continues. Otherwise WTO tariffs from EU to UK (both GB* and Northern Ireland).

Other Right Hand Drive countries in EU include Eire, Malta & Cyprus but these are small markets that are hardly worth a swap over on a regular basis. Tesla could do LHD, then swap to RHD in Berlin on one line, producing a surplus of EU RHD that get used up over time. Not optimal.

So Tesla have to decide what to do, but not until much later. Strangely, if Brexit deal isn't ratified, UK might get Model Y from China (possibly before Berlin/EU but I doubt it).

*GB is Great Britain, the UK without Northern Ireland for the purposes of this post.
 
The fast ramp of MY in China this quarter is a glimpse into the vast potential of Tesla unfolding quickly. Those of us in the West who have fixed expectations of the speed and scale by which companies grow, are going to woefully underestimate what is happening with Tesla in China.

I think the reason Tesla didn’t give a production estimate at the beginning of this year is that it’s going to be so high in China that nobody in the West would believe it.

For a good picture of the speed and scale of Chinese manufacturing, see Ashlee Vance’s video from Shenzhen:

 
Not since 2011 or so, I expected more trucks and SUV's and fewer cars, especially for construction workers.
No reason to have a truck unless you’re a contractor. The skilled workers just bring their skills and some small hand tools. The contractor supplies the power tools and the material.
 
The fast ramp of MY in China this quarter is a glimpse into the vast potential of Tesla unfolding quickly. Those of us in the West who have fixed expectations of the speed and scale by which companies grow, are going to woefully underestimate what is happening with Tesla in China.

I think the reason Tesla didn’t give a production estimate at the beginning of this year is that it’s going to be so high in China that nobody in the West would believe it.

For a good picture of the speed and scale of Chinese manufacturing, see Ashlee Vance’s video from Shenzhen:

I wonder whether Texas contractors from the early stages will be redeployed on building a second Tesla factory on the large site. I seem to remember there being room for 6-8 in total (minus space for other purposes, SpaceX, Boring, even housing).

With a tailwind in the USA from credits and other changes, more cells, more cars/HGVs sooner (supported by a healthy cash surplus) would seem possible. Build factory, ramp factory while building next.
 
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I thought shadows cause phantom braking mostly.

Affecting the remaining 00.01 of cases would be very good reason to KEEP radar.
I always thought the biggest benefit from radar was the ability to measure relative speed at a distance, say 50-300 yards. If you don't think radar is better at that task, just ask the officer next time you get pulled over for speeding, I know my binocular vision is challenged estimating relative speed at longer distances. I'm very dependent on break lights. but they don't always work.

I trust that Tesla's solution using just vision is real, I just don't know how they do it. Do they measure distance by having binocular vision with wider separation of the cameras, measure changes in focal length of the cameras, measure changes in relative size of the Images, etc.? What other options are availabe?
 
I trust that Tesla's solution using just vision is real, I just don't know how they do it. Do they measure distance by having binocular vision with wider separation of the cameras, measure changes in focal length of the cameras, measure changes in relative size of the Images, etc.? What other options are availabe?
I suggest watching the Dave Lee/James Douma video on Youtube that covers how FSD measures distance. Too difficult to do it justice in a couple of sentences here. It is not done through binocular vision as in human depth perception.
 
No reason to have a truck unless you’re a contractor. The skilled workers just bring their skills and some small hand tools. The contractor supplies the power tools and the material.
You calling me a Contractor? I need to charge the boat while at the lake in my near future. SuperChargers at lakes!
 
A discussion about the benefits of radar should account for how modern AI based on neural networks makes decisions. Understanding this clarifies Elon's comment about not needing radar and thinking probabilistically.

The NN AIs in Teslas are basically probability calculators. The decision making in NNs is probability based, not binary or rule based logic (e.g. not a rule like check under the car in front and see if another car is slowing down). NNs have weights (coefficients) applied to each input (pixel) of each sensor (camera, radar, etc) which generate outputs that are fed into more layers that have weights that effectively use input to predict what the proper objects are or behavior should be.

Determining the coefficients and NN models is hard, but it's easy to see that Tesla can assess the contribution of radar to the system. Try one pass without the radar, try it again with the radar, then compare the accuracy of predictions.

Arguing that radar handles certain cases is binary thinking because it assumes that a particular "case" is recognizable (aka TRUE/FALSE) and would handle it a certain way. However, NNs assign probabilities to predictions (e.g. 82.35% chance of being this situation), so it's not black or white.

There's also the matter of ROI when adding sensors. Using completely made up numbers, let say radar ($100) improves NN predictions by 5%, but adding two more cameras ($20) improves NN predictions by 10%. Clearly, Tesla is better off installing two more cameras instead of one expensive radar.

If two cameras improve NN predictions 10%, is that worth $20? After all, maybe accidents would drop from 10,000 to 9,000. That sounds like a lot, but autonomy will require 5 or more orders of magnitude improvement. In other words, reducing errors from 10,000 -> 1,000, then 1,000 -> 100, etc until it's .1 error. With such large reductions, 10% would not make a difference, because the 100,000% improvement needed from better AI models and training would dwarf a 10% improvement through additional sensors.

My numbers are made up, but Tesla knows what the real numbers are. If Tesla drops radar, it's because they have done the math that shows it does not add a material improvement, relative to improvements in FSD software.
Thanks for the comments.

I will note add a couple points lightly covered previously.

1. Radar (pre-Tesla) was added to help human drivers with early warning for collision events. Human drivers have a delayed response time that computers do not.

2. Most important really is the EM comments on signal to noise ratio. Included in this signal to noise ratio(SNR) is the implied amount of noise caused by radar. Trying to discriminate signal from a quiet noise floor is not too difficult and this gets to the feature/benefit of vision. Vision is mostly passive. Adding (absurdly) 100 additional cameras generates little to zero noise but adding 100 additional radar sensor adds a tremendous amount of additional noise because each unit generates RF transmissions adding noise for the receiver sort through.

The reality is that with each Tesla vehicle (or other radar equipped vehicle) encountered, radar noise is encountered. Adding hundreds of Teslas into traffic generates noise that even high fidelity receivers will struggle with. Vision is not degraded by adding 1,000s of additional cameras in other vehicles. The potential of increasing noise from radar degrades the SNR and that degrades the value of radar IMO. Vision does not suffer from this noise problem in the same way.

It seems to me, one of the messages the NN are revealing is that there are an optimum number of sensor inputs for the speed of travel, surface friction, and tire traction (tread depth etc). In other words, how to be less wrong.
 
I wonder whether Texas contractors from the early stages will be redeployed on building a second Tesla factory on the large site. I seem to remember there being room for 6-8 in total (minus space for other purposes, SpaceX, Boring, even housing).

With a tailwind in the USA from credits and other changes, more cells, more cars/HGVs sooner (supported by a healthy cash surplus) would seem possible. Build factory, ramp factory while building next.
I expect construction on the Austin campus to continue for at least the next 4 years. Between additional Tesla GFs, a Starlink factory, who-knows-what-else factories, multiple corporate HQs, etc, they are just getting started. There have been rumors of more land purchases.

Ground Zero for Musk Industries will take quite some time to complete. I don't think there will be anything quite like it.
 
I expect construction on the Austin campus to continue for at least the next 4 years. Between additional Tesla GFs, a Starlink factory, who-knows-what-else factories, multiple corporate HQs, etc, they are just getting started. There have been rumors of more land purchases.

Ground Zero for Musk Industries will take quite some time to complete. I don't think there will be anything quite like it.
“Austin is going to be the biggest boomtown America has seen in the last 50 years” Musk on Rogan.
 
I guess anything about Elon gets you lots of clicks these days:




View attachment 652795
get
Excellent publicity: Tunnels should be boring. Nobody wants excitement in a new transportation system.

Bonus: It cost tens of millions of dollars rather than the billions taxpayers have come to expect from, for example, public pork works projects.
 
“Austin is going to be the biggest boomtown America has seen in the last 50 years” Musk on Rogan.
It was one hell of a PR risk move to build in the state that was the most reticent to let Tesla sell his cars directly to consumers.

Has this promise of thousand jobs creation changed the view of Tesla by the legislation makers? Will they allow Tesla to finally sell directly to customers?
 
I always thought the biggest benefit from radar was the ability to measure relative speed at a distance, say 50-300 yards. If you don't think radar is better at that task, just ask the officer next time you get pulled over for speeding, I know my binocular vision is challenged estimating relative speed at longer distances. I'm very dependent on break lights. but they don't always work.

I trust that Tesla's solution using just vision is real, I just don't know how they do it. Do they measure distance by having binocular vision with wider separation of the cameras, measure changes in focal length of the cameras, measure changes in relative size of the Images, etc.? What other options are availabe?

Human binocular vision isn’t good at estimating distance very far away (50-300 yards). Tesla vision doesn't use it either. I believe it uses the same mechanism that humans use. Ie. We know what we are looking at (tree, truck, car, stop sign) and have an estimate of its size based on that knowledge. We then see that object grow in size, and based on the speed we are traveling at, can estimate distance. It works well enough. You don’t need to be accurate down to several digits.