I own multiple shares of TSLA stock.
Isn't this specific thread for Tesla investors or is it simply for Elon worshipping? If it's for the latter I'll put it on mute.
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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
I own multiple shares of TSLA stock.
Isn't this specific thread for Tesla investors or is it simply for Elon worshipping? If it's for the latter I'll put it on mute.
lots and lots of superchargers. including 200 stall site in Florida now
www.econotimes.com
Tesla to Unveil World's Largest Supercharger Sites in Florida and California - EconoTimes
Tesla is set to revolutionize electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure by constructing the worlds largest Supercharger station in Florida, boasting over 200 stalls, alongside a pioneering 164-stall site in California....
www.econotimes.com
The Gen3 vehicle is a platform, not just one model. Tesla is showing off the RT on 8/8, so while they haven't said they'll be showing the "Model 2" as well, I think its a good bet the RT will be very close to how the M2 will turn out. So in effect we'll probably be getting a sneak peak at some great info on the M2 on 8/8 too.
I think Tesla just doesn't want to Osbourne M3 or MY sales by showing the M2 too early.
exactly... I disengage every single drive becuase I want to make different decisions about where and how to park than it does. Even at my own house, it doesn't choose to go into the driveway, and I do. To me that disengagement doesn't count as the equivalent of a collision.
Question here:
And the end of navigation, how to “end FSD “ properly without create a Disengagement Count?
And the end of a navigation it shows FSD completed, step on accerlerator to resume.
Of course I don’t want to do that, but it leaves me no other option except step on brake to disengage.
Looks like you don’t know how either, because you also disengage it.
This shouldn’t be a matter but now that increases the statistics number. And that effect the SP in the end, and this my money.
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
I don't know for sure, but Tesla could ignore disengagements within a quarter mile of the start and end of a route pretty easily as far as statistics are concerned.
And that would get rid of a lot of disengagements that aren't *really* disengagements. But of course FSD may be driving perfectly fine and someone disengages in the middle of the trip just because they want to pass another car or take a different route or drive for themselves for awhile. For these reasons, I think the rate of change of disengagements per mile is far more important right now than the absolute number at this point. Everyone knows you generally need to disengage at your destination to park, etc.
Once Tesla's added a network trained specifically for the start and end of trips (parking lots, driveways, etc) then the absolute number will become more important. And once we're at that point, I'm not sure how they plan to distinguish necessary disengagements from voluntary ones.
KBF
Model X owner (formerly Cdn Signature Model S)
Some of my disengagements so far are from wanting to drive more aggressively than my car (passing the car ahead quickly on a winding road - legal but you have to be aggressive to be safe). This won't reflect most disengagements, but just pointing out x% are perhaps even the opposite (my disengagement actually increases the chance of an accident, but I chose that risk for the sake of arriving on time due to ultra-cautious drivers going 10 under the speed limit on a winding 2-way highway).
Edit: of course, if I was smart, I'd end FSD by tapping up on my Model Y shifter stalk rather than just turning my steering wheel... That'll take time to make it an instinct. Don't know how it works on cars with no stalks...
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Krugerrand
Meow
I thought more about it, and I predominantly disengage for the above reason and because I don’t trust the human drivers around me to be mindful.
I can’t actually recall disengaging because imminent crash. Indeed, I’ve been saved from crashes by FSD - not my car’s fault but other human drivers making poor decisions.
Most of mine are because I want the car to drive less aggressively--particularly stops and starts. There really needs to be a DMD (Driving Miss Daisy) mode.
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
I know you're much more conservative on acceleration than I am, but I agree the initial releases have had the acceleration dialed up a smidge too high. I can feel the tread scraping off my Continentals every time I pull onto the main road. There are a few times of course where such acceleration is necessary--for example pulling out into a busy road where you have to get up to speed quickly. But most of the time it's overdone.
Looking forward to seeing how the speed and acceleration profiles evolve over time.
To the kitty cat's point, I haven't had any critical disengagements on v12 yet. They've all been for going to fast, silly lane changes, or doing something generally embarassing so far.
If a two seater were the right solution for the first world, would we not see more two or more car households having one of those cars be a two seater? Also, I doubt that in ride share services there is large a percentage of two seaters (again I mean in the first world).
So, my guess too is that the initial vehicle on the next gen platform is not going to be a two seater. I wouldn’t bet that it will be particularly compact. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was $25K after incentives rather than before at least for a while.
It very likely that the personal vehicle will differ in trim and perhaps markedly so.
Am I certain of anything? Yes, it’ll be an EV!
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Yeah as I said the actual content of their models is comical-- they got one randomly guessed target number right once (though off on date by years, and tied to selling 10x more cars than were actually sold when the target was hit) and everything else they've done since has been objectively worse than just buying an index fund, yet people keep citing what they say for some weird reason.
The leaf sold like 50,000 units a year.
All the "cheap" evs you mention, combined, don't even approach ONE million cars worth of cells a year.
Tesla is talking about many millions per year of the next-gen car.
Because the Model 3 lineup lost the $7500 tax credit in the US due to no qualifying batteries being available to Tesla. It's not like they didn't know that was coming.
Currently the car is never operating autonomously. Tesla explicitly tells you that.
GOOD NEWS!
That's exactly how that works- legally.
If Tesla decides it's safe to actually drive autonomously they can instantly announce that... today... and make that available to almost half the US population, without needing any regulatory agency to agree with them.
Then they'll be able to compile actual autonomous miles data to make their case in the rest of the world where there ARE regulatory bodies you need to convince.
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Sorry Mods. if you consider this to be merely political, but it is about EVs and investors in their companies. Sometimes politics and investing get inexorably intertwined.
Tampa Free Press - today:
Florida Sen. Rubio Calls On “Scranton Joe” To Quit EV Policies That Prop Up America’s Competitors In China
Below is my response to Rubio:
“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.” – H.G. Wells
Sorry sir, but you opinion column in the Washington Examiner dissing EVs was despicable. Either you are a clueless Luddite or shamelessly beholden to fossil fuel and legacy auto donors. EVs are not leftist or rightist, yet you always seem to want to twist issues into attacks against the other party. Please start working together.
Climate change is warming the sea around Florida and greatly increasing the threat of devastating hurricanes. Insurance actuaries understand the science and have advised their firms to hugely raise property and auto insurance rates for Florida residents and businesses.
Rather than make this an issue against Chinese capitalist (which you insist on labeling communist) manufacturers, do all that you can to assist American producers of alternative energy and electric vehicles. The most American automaker Tesla is ahead of the curve. Help them enlarge the electric grid rather than complain about it.
EVs will eventually be dominant, and you can help smooth the way rather than behave like a Luddite who does not understand that new technologies always create new jobs that are better, safer and less backbreaking. I suppose that a century ago you would have complained about cars destroying the horse and buggy industries. Please show us that you are forward thinking and will lead the way to alternative energy and electric vehicles.
Tampa Free Press - today:
Florida Sen. Rubio Calls On “Scranton Joe” To Quit EV Policies That Prop Up America’s Competitors In China
Below is my response to Rubio:
“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.” – H.G. Wells
Sorry sir, but you opinion column in the Washington Examiner dissing EVs was despicable. Either you are a clueless Luddite or shamelessly beholden to fossil fuel and legacy auto donors. EVs are not leftist or rightist, yet you always seem to want to twist issues into attacks against the other party. Please start working together.
Climate change is warming the sea around Florida and greatly increasing the threat of devastating hurricanes. Insurance actuaries understand the science and have advised their firms to hugely raise property and auto insurance rates for Florida residents and businesses.
Rather than make this an issue against Chinese capitalist (which you insist on labeling communist) manufacturers, do all that you can to assist American producers of alternative energy and electric vehicles. The most American automaker Tesla is ahead of the curve. Help them enlarge the electric grid rather than complain about it.
EVs will eventually be dominant, and you can help smooth the way rather than behave like a Luddite who does not understand that new technologies always create new jobs that are better, safer and less backbreaking. I suppose that a century ago you would have complained about cars destroying the horse and buggy industries. Please show us that you are forward thinking and will lead the way to alternative energy and electric vehicles.
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cliff harris
Member
Sure. But there are still things called production ramps. The Cybertruck still isn't even at 50,000 units a year yet (AFAIK). Ramping production takes time, and ramping battery production takes time soon. Luckily Tesla are even building their own lithium refinery. Do you REALLY think they forgot? you think there was a post-it note saying 'secure batteries for next gen' and it fell behind a chair?
I have no doubt that we will only see 50,000 next-gen vehicles in the first year, and maybe 200k the next year etc. Thats exactly what everyone is expecting to happen. You expect Tesla to stockpile fifty billion 4680s somewhere before they reveal the next gen vehicle?
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
I think by now Tesla was expecting 4680 to be much higher production than it is, such that all those nice US made 2170s could go into $7500 tax credit eligible Model 3 Highlands, and the Ys could be made with $7500 tax credit eligible 4680 structural packs.
But that didn't happen, and the nearest they had to a backup plan was using Chinese no-credit cells in the 3 and taking any sales hit the lack of credit involved.
I agree Tesla plans. I disagree with your implication those plans always work out perfectly. And they've freely admitted there's some things their plans forget or leave out- and then remains unfixed years later.
Anybody remember this?
Elon admitting Teslas foolish oversight in not planning for full geographic coverage of service centers in the US. Thinks he'll have it solved in 3-6 months.
It's almost 6 years later and that's still not actually solved (as was discussed in here many times since, as recently as like a week ago).
The fact Tesla does stuff a lot better and smarter than legacy auto doesn't mean they do everything correct and that they forecast everything perfectly years in advance
If they did the 3 would be available with a $7500 tax credit right now. The 3 refresh in Fremont wouldn't be behind schedule. The S/X refresh in Fremont wouldn't have been hilariously behind schedule. They wouldn't have taken orders for various car configs over the years they ended up never building. They wouldn't have announced a roadster that's years past due and per Elon recently underwent a radical change in design goals. They wouldn't have announced GigaMexico then pushed back those plans, and so on.
Sometimes they miss things in their planning.
Sometimes conditions change between planning and execution.
Sometimes even if you do plan for a thing the execution has issues.
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FastEddieB
Member
philw1776
Member
Since now we're into allowing FSD discussions, as a Beta guy with the latest I would have but did not disengage twice this morning. Came upon wet roads and car slowed to 2 MPH twice. Well under a half inch and later maybe almost a 2 inch deep water encounter. Would have bailed FSD had anyone been behind me. Anyone else have this happen?
Also allowed car to drive over roadkill which I would not do were I driving.
Otherwise the drive was excellent as I was able to glance at scenery which I would not do if driving. A great upgrade.
Also allowed car to drive over roadkill which I would not do were I driving.
Otherwise the drive was excellent as I was able to glance at scenery which I would not do if driving. A great upgrade.
For me personally you have crossed the line of decency with the above.
These two persons are putting in a lot of effort for us investors and I keep them in high esteem.
I see now that you have been sent on a vacation, I cannot agree more.
Gigapress
Trying to be less wrong
I guess it depends on what you mean by sharing a platform with a consumer version. There will definitely be a lot of commonality in the architecture annd technology, and a modified Gen3 consumer car could certainly make a decent robotaxi. The modular unboxed manufacturing process and structural battery pack help make it easier to add variety to the parts of the vehicle above the skateboard. Still, a robotaxi fleet comprising minimally modified consumer cars would be far from optimal when compared to a family of dedicated robotaxis designs.How so? I've always envisioned the Robotaxi as just the upcoming Tesla compact Gen3 without a steering wheel or pedals. Everything else about the car would be identical to the consumer variant.
What do you think would be different about a dedicated robotaxi design that would not allow it to share a platform with a consumer version?
Specialized solutions, in their niche, will always outperform generic solutions. The more you can narrow the design requirements and objectives for a system, the more you can optimize its design with customization. A robotaxi has many fundamentally different marketing considerations than a consumer vehicle has. Some key differences include:
- 3-10x more usage per day
- They will either be "bought" internally by Tesla or bought by third-party businesses, but not by retail customers
- Exterior styling and sporty performance less important; cabin experience more important
- Most will never leave their local service area
- Instead of an individual serving all the various needs of an individual person or household, a fleet of vehicles will serve the collective needs of a whole local market
- Most of the time, occupant ingress & egress will occur from the curb side (right-hand side in most markets). Also, disability accommodations are necessary.
- Many of the safety regulations for human-driven vehicles do not apply
- Service will be performed by fleet management teams, not individuals and third parties
- Speculative opportunities:
- Cargo variant
- Higher speed limit
- Optimizing for operation in Boring Company Loops
The vastly greater usage rate profoundly affects the economic value calculus. It is easier to justify greater upfront capital expenses for a robotaxi than for consumer cars, because the payoff comes much quicker. For example, suppose the engineers are choosing between two designs. One design is less expensive to produce, but it only has 250k miles of useful life. The alternative design would cost $10k more, but it will reduce lifetime per-mile maintenance costs and will have a useful life of 500k miles. Most retail car buyers would prefer the first design if the savings were passed on via a $10k discount, but the second design is better for a robotaxi that will be used for 100k miles per year.
Consumer psychology factors into this as well. Traditional car design is largely based upon appealing to (irrational) consumer preferences. For example, this is the only reason why so many cars today have enormous front grills, which exist only for appearance, not functionality. Retail buyers focus on factors like style, perceived safety, performance, driving feel, and perhaps most importantly for many customers, what the vehicle will communicate about their identity and social status. People also tend to strongly discount the future and focus more on short-term costs and benefits. Businesses operate more on long-term planning and spreadsheet models. They will look at depreciation, amortization and maintenance much more rationally than a typical retail customer. Durability is just one example of this utilization-rate effect on the design tradeoffs. I expect people will have different psychological relationship with a robotaxi they're riding in, such that cabin experience, price, and service convenience become the more dominant considerations.
When conforming to conventional external aesthetic norms no longer matters much, what else changes? Let's start with a throwback to a first-principles design from GM, the old EV1. This is likely closer to what a two-seater robotaxi should look like. That weird-looking fairing over the rear wheel well improves aerodynamics, and so does the bubbly body shape and the taper on the aft end of the car. This design is excellent for aerodynamics, which translates to better energy efficiency and less cabin noise, but most retail customers would say this looks ugly and dorky.
If Tesla expects that robotaxis, due to their safety and millisecond-scale reaction time, will eventually be approved for top speeds much higher than we legally allow humans to drive on public roads, then aerodynamic efficiency becomes even more important. Additionally, if Tesla expects the Boring Co concept to be successful, it could be worthwhile to tailor the design to serve that use case better.
While styling and exterior aesthetics will matter less, the cabin experience becomes much more important, and the design objectives for the cabin differ too.
- It needs to have better night lighting
- The suspension and tires should be tuned more for comfort, NVH damping, and stability, and less for sporty handling performance and driving feel
- Extra insulation material could be added to further attenuate NVH
- It also could make more sense to give the robotaxi a fancy, Model S-like audio system
- The back seats will be more important because they'll be used far more often than in a consumer car
- Productivity features like tables and electrical outlets might be worth including
- The cabin needs to be designed for flexibility to accommodate a variety of seating configurations (and maybe cargo configurations too) without compromising overall cost and complexity too much
Because most robotaxis will stay local, most of them will not need a large battery. Most EVs today have far more battery capacity than is used on a daily basis. The capacity is sized mainly to allow for occasional long trips and for convenience of customers who aren't able to charge at home or at work. For robotaxi fleets, this is a major optimization opportunity. The design of the robotaxi platform will likely include variants with batteries much too small to be competitive as consumer EVs. Transportation demand fluctuates throughout the day, week and year, but especially daily. Fleet capacity will need to accommodate the highest-demand periods. The rest of the time, a substantial portion of vehicles will be unnecessary and will sit idle, serving only the morning and evening rush hours. Therefore, cars with 50-100 miles of range may be useful for this niche. Especially now that Tesla makes structural battery packs, this could affect chassis undercarriage design.
The battery size variation can only work because the fleet of vehicles will serve the collective needs of a whole local market. This new design optionality will also affect vehicle sizing, seating arrangements, luggage space, and even whether to design for a cargo variant to serve last-mile and low-demand delivery routes. Balancing all the needs of a single customer with a single vehicle severely constrains the design options and requires major compromises. The biggest compromise is seating capacity. Almost all trips are with one or two occupants, for an average utilization factor that's probably around 20-25%. Robotaxi networks should be able to perform about 2-4x better on this metric, if the family of vehicles in the fleet is designed specifically for this purpose. As @MC3OZ noted, the two-seater also could be designed for a narrower body to further improve aero drag, weight, size and cost. If narrow enough, two-seaters could even hypothetically drive two across in Boring Co Loops, which are just barely wide enough to make this a plausible possibility.
Most of the time, passenger ingress & egress will occur from the curb side. Due to this asymmetry in typical loading/unloading patterns, it might make sense to have a laterally asymmetrical vehicle design and unconventional door configurations. Should there be bigger apertures on the primary entry/exit side? Should there be a sliding door like a van or dual sliding doors like the Zoox robotaxi prototype (see image below)? Rear doors as suicide doors (i.e. hinge on C-pillar instead of B-pillar) in order to enable a large single opening?
Also, at least some of the robotaxis will need to provide accessibility for disabled people. The design decisions for the doors and surrounding structure and wiring also may affect design decisions regarding wheelchair ramp integration.
There are even more questions when we take it to first principles and look at the details. Should the low-speed, high-capacity, urban vehicle be longitudinally symmetrical like the Zoox so that it can drive in either direction equally well, to increase flexibility in tight spaces and save precious time on turning around? If we design for aero efficiency without side mirrors and with a radically unconventional rear end design, how does that affect the optimal upstream aero design of the front end? Since the driving is done with only cameras, do we still need a wiper for the entire windshield? If not, how does that affect the rest of the vehicle design, from the slope of the windshield to the arrangement of internal subsystems? How does deletion of the steering wheel and wiring (looking at Cybertruck drive-by-wire as the current state of the art) affect the configuration and layout of other subsystems? When you aren't constrained by driver visibility angles, how does that affect the design of the A pillar? And so on.
None of this stuff should be considered in isolation, because there are all sorts of interdependencies in the design. It's not just about deleting unnecessary parts and processes. It's also about exploiting the new opportunities that arise when those parts are no longer taking up space and constraining other design choices. Good vehicle design requires intelligent systems integration, which Tesla has always focused on and excelled at. I expect they will continue to do so with the robotaxi platform, and that's why it probably will have major differences from consumer vehicles.
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