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

[Surfer of Life]

… it seemed to think the shoulder was a lane and began diving into it...

Likewise; seemed about to pass on the acceleration ramp shoulder so I disengaged.

All V12 versions so far wait too long to get in appropriate turn lanes, resulting in uncourteous driving at the least; not the image Tesla should exhibit.

I’m surprised Tesla didn’t find and fix these basic issues early on. Amazing as FSD is, I find this forum constantly over optimistic for imminent FSD autonomy timeline.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Why show a product to people that will never be able to purchase it? What would be the point of teasing them?

Many if not most concept cars or show cars never make it to production. That's not the point of showing off the technology. The point is to create interest or buzz in a follow-on product that will be available. Think 48 volt architecture, steer by wire, four wheel steering, and possibly stainless steel materials.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Woot! Those of us with USS can finally Auto Park with the big kids! (Once you install FSD v12.3.6 that is). Thanks Ashok, you have freed me from my grief.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784638535980765695

 

[Artful Dodger]

Canadians love to vote. Here's how:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784319045124157631

 

[Rarity]

With hindsight it is very clear that battery day was just an effort to do the minimal needed attention to a critical gap, that why it was not staffed. The real effort had shifted to bright and shiny- FSD, ai, robots. Nothing to do with sustainability. Teslas own 4680 engineering efforts have produced no promised improvement. CATL meanwhile is sampling and maybe now producing 4680 form class battery cells that they claim do in fact have higher yield. Prismatic 4680 form. Huh..innovation, they put several thousand engineers to work on this.

On the contrary, we can see the emerging reality where FSD, AI, and robots are a huge question of energy sustainability. Yesterday, I heard that 18% of electricity production in Ireland is devoted to data center operations. I think it was on the Tesla section of the All In Podcast. The FSD/AI/robot portion of that is probably a minority of data center electricity usage now, but in the next couple of years will grow rapidly and come to dominate. What has happened in Ireland will come to the shores of the US.

You can see the integrated approach that Tesla is taking with Giga Texas. Electricity generation, battery banks, grid connection, battery production, AI training data centers, vehicle production, eventually robot production. Not all of that integrated effort is in phase timing-wise, so you would wish to utilize outside suppliers or internal off-site suppliers to accelerate or plug holes. But it's a big benefit, for instance, that Tesla will have less need of additional transformers at Giga Texas because everything is colocated.

We can see others start to think about the desirability of an integrated approach. Microsoft's recent pairing of an old nuclear power plant with an AI training data center comes to mind.

 

[Linkmeup]

As has been pointed out many times, one of the main drugs that Elon is often alleged to be abusing (ketamine) is a prescription medication, so wouldn’t be covered by a drug test result for illegal substances.

I haven't commented on this, but my mom has a fused plate in her neck from (likely) working the assembly line for computer parts. Brilliant person, but her career was hamstrung at an early age as an immigrant in this country...when I heard Elon Musk got something similar done after the Sumo incident, I do understand why he's likely taking ketamine for the pain and the subsequent mental health.

It is a tremendously awful, lifelong experience to have a fused vertebra. People should be astonished he's this productive with, a very likely, significant amount of pain he's dealing with minute-by-minute.

 

[mongo]

Sure. But that's 8 years after Elon said 350KW was a mere childs toy in reference to what V3 posts would do.

Right-- real world results on V3 were significantly lower than Elon suggested they would be in 2016 as already cited- from grid was JUST as the level he called a childs toy, and charge to the car was significantly lower than that.

I know it's outdated, but he was talking Powerpacks, not Megapacks. Those had separate inverters feeding the battery units. So theoretically, that DC link could direct feed a V3 cabinet at nearly a MW.
In the background, semi was being tested in 2017 so they likely had one of those quad feed units prototyped out.

 

[Usain]

All V12 versions so far wait too long to get in appropriate turn lanes, resulting in uncourteous driving at the least; not the image Tesla should exhibit.

Yes, I consider lane selection to be FSD's greatest weakness. But from my experience, it's a whole lot better in V12 than V10 and V11. Just hoping for continued improvement.

 

[Usain]

Woot! Those of us with USS can finally Auto Park with the big kids! (Once you install FSD v12.3.6 that is). Thanks Ashok, you have freed me from my grief.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784638535980765695

Autopark is now awesome. It's still a little slow, but Ashok has said the next version will be faster. The vision-only based system is a huge improvement over the old USS-based system.

 

[Gigapress]

Here is some fascinating Boring Co efficiency analysis from X user Jon Twigge. I had been planning to write up something like this, but this post covers most of it plus some things I hadn't thought of.

The general theme is that the vehicles can be designed custom for the extremely specific and controlled environmental and operational use case of Loops. This specialization and operating model means that these "cars in tunnels" could have cost and energy efficiency that is conservatively at least 3x better than a Model Y being used on surface roads.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757586800728514623

Youtube video with some more commentary:

Some things the post and video miss that I would add:

• The total lack of humps and bumps in the roadway probably means the vehicles could have very low ground clearance and maybe side-skirt fairings like you see on some semi trucks (see example below). This would improve aero drag. Likewise, the rear wheel wells could have fairings (this one applies to surface robotaxis as well).

• The one- or two-seat vehicle models maybe could get away with only having three wheels and still be sufficiently stable.
• No rolling resistance penalty from rain, snow, or debris being on the pavement
• Generally mild temperatures underground means less energy must be expended on thermal control of the battery and cabin

 

[hobbes]

Some Sunday fun:

 

[Christine69420]

Cybertruck launching in Europe this summer?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784602451066204438

.

Would not mind. But as of now I cannot order a Cybertruck.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Yes, I consider lane selection to be FSD's greatest weakness. But from my experience, it's a whole lot better in V12 than V10 and V11. Just hoping for continued improvement.

Here's an experiment for you: leave your car in sentry mode so it stays awake and connected to Wi-Fi while you're parked. Trust me... You'll be surprised how good your next trip is.

 

[hobbes]

Autopark is now awesome. It's still a little slow, but Ashok has said the next version will be faster. The vision-only based system is a huge improvement over the old USS-based system.

Now also available for those WITH USS!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784638535980765695

 

[Knightshade]

Autopark is now awesome. It's still a little slow, but Ashok has said the next version will be faster. The vision-only based system is a huge improvement over the old USS-based system.

Autopark on USS cars has been vision based for years now--- that's why you've been able to park in spaces without other cars around (prior to several years ago you could only park between 2 existing cars since it was NOT vision based-- but that changed in 2021- see link below for when it was introduced.

Tesla's vision-based Autopark: What it is and how it's better

Tesla offers various driver assist features under their Full Self-Driving umbrella that help with everyday tasks. These features make driving easier, especiall

www.notateslaapp.com

So from 2021 through just a month or so ago vision-based parking WITH USS worked fine..... and vision based parking for non-USS cars did not exist because vision ONLY wasn't capable of safe operation for parking.

Tesla finally got non-USS vision only good enough to roll out just recently.... So the only thing that changed for USS cars is they got the updated visualization/spot selection features added in this update.

 

[hobbes]

Now also available for those WITH USS!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784638535980765695

You can even switch between USS and Tesla vision (probably to demonstrate how good Tesla vision is in comparison)!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784685617495818442

 

[Usain]

So from 2021 through just a month or so ago vision-based parking WITH USS worked fine.....

That one wasn't very good either. It sorta worked if you could get it to recognize a target parking spot.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Paging @bpjod CT light bar:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784624470843326695

 

[Stretch2727]

For the weekend, some Tesla history.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784676257835180484

 

[Knightshade]

That one wasn't very good either. It sorta worked if you could get it to recognize a target parking spot.

Prior to the 2021 vision upgrade my USS car had a hard time detecting spots.... since then it works very reliably and I never have trouble with it.


Also of note-- apparently only AMD-based MCU cars are getting this, not Intel ones.

This is at least the 2nd significant feature divergence recently where older MCU vehicles even that paid for FSD features (with no upgrade path) are being left behind