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

[neroden]

Yes!!!
I have been searching my ancient files for a study I was peripherally involved with in the early 1980’s that was done by a team led by SRI (née: Stanford Research Institute) and Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. The study had physicists (fluid dynamics specialists), a Mathematical Biophysicist (Nicholas Rashevsky protege-As I recall) and an array of other disciplines. Multi-discipline everything was all the rage then, so even I was allowed to be there.

The board conclusions I remember clearly even though I don’t have all the paper.
Fluid dynamics explains auto traffic in nearly every case. High speeds without accidents are entirely possible, so long as there is minimal speed variation between ‘lanes’, nor movement between lanes. However, even a slight perturbation at high speed destroys smooth flow and causes accidents.

OK, obvious. But..

Slightly lower speeds, but with rigid speed stability, allows faster throughput without major risk. Further, reducing available locations for ingress increase stability as does increasing locations for exit. The entry/exit dichotomy was ruled true, but largely unexecutable. Parenthetically, there are a few highways designed with that in mind. They are almost all in formerly rural areas that have parallel access roads with more exit than entry options, but all designed to allow matching speeds to prevailing streams on access roads. There are a handful in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, some in various parts of Europe, China and probably elsewhere.

If FSD actually becomes practical, and fast acceleration becomes the norm it would be quite easy to optimize highways for very fast and efficient very close interval traffic. That is transparently the plan for Tesla Semi. It also already works in many parts of the world for dedicated bus routes. FSD can effectively deliver an exceedingly efficient, yet private, transportation system.

That has been the stuff of futurologists for decades. Will TSLA help make that happen? Obviously! Can we expect to make positive investments from this?
I hope so, enough so that I bet on it. Enough that I pay for the fantasy of FSD because the possibility of a positive outcome makes the expected value far greater than the actual cash outlay.

For a very long time there will be some manual drivers on any given road. What I remember from my review of the studies is that just a few maniacs mess it up for everyone and you lose the theoreticsl throughput benefits... Which is why those benefits have never been realized in practice. There will be special robocar-only freeways which get those benefits, but the politics of banning the human drivers who cannot afford the new automated driving cars or who have weird vehicles... I do not sre it happening with many existing freeways, and for surface streets, crossing pedestrians mean it is basically impossible.

 

[mongo]

Need another study?

One Driver Can Prevent a Traffic Jam

The techniques are simple, though some of them—such as leaving a large gap between your car and the one in front and freely letting other drivers cut in—feel counterintuitive to most drivers.

This is well known among traffic engineers. More space equals fewer traffic jams. It may feel counterintuitive, but it's reality.

Oh I'm not saying that the buffer doesn't need to be proportional to response time, only that the original paper was talking about something other than what @neroden was.
In regards to the original gif, the persistence issue in a dense traffic perturbation is that people do not (or cannot) accelerate as fast as they decelerate (nor follow as closely when leaving a jam). Until the rate of cars leaving a jam exceeds the rate entering, the jam will continue to exist. (Insert parallel to a rocket engine throat at the trans-sonic threshold).
Article that references the study of drivers on a circular track that end up bunching together...
Just One Driverless Car Could Ease Traffic Jams

Edit: typo in first line, doesn't not does..

 

[neroden]

That's just a situation where the stopped autonomous car sends video to HQ, and HQ sends video to the police. Video evidence is a great bullshit maneuver deterrent.

Yeah, the bus agency would win that one. Long story. They have to swing out, the road is too narrow not to. End result if you tried that, rules changed for benefit of bus, all cars must stop 40 feet before intersection. New problem for self driving car to deal with.

 

[Tslynk67]

Are the X's stock tires rated for those speeds?

I think it would be rather negligent for Tesla to fit tyres with a lower speed-rating than the car can achieve!

But OK, they are "W", which is 270kmph - it's the 22" Eagle F1 Asymmetric.

 

[brian45011]

Interesting. I knew that Jurvetson and Gracias were Musk allies, but I wasn't aware that Buss was as well. Looks like the only "independent" person on the board who's leaving is Rice. They got rid of every Musk ally except Kimball (well, and Larry, though he's nominally independent). This, combined with the elimination of supermajority requirements, would be a massive win for institutionals and a loss for Elon (but one he's apparently accepting, since Tesla is endorsing this).

Something is surely going on behind the scenes here.

Buss was CFO of SCTY, and came from CY which was an early TSLA vendor. Ehrenpreis is maintaining a low profile; he's also a SpaceX director. The restructuring was likely planned well before the contempt motion was filed.

 

[neroden]

Geez,finally caught up after my medical trip. Not much news, but with insomnia why not catch up...

 

[bdy0627]

He is not wrong. While I do not believe full everywhere all conditions level 5 FSD is possible, the fact is that "partial self driving" also depends on the best dataset, and Tesla has an uncatchable lead.

I should emphasize that what is never happening is "everywhere, all conditions, any time, sleep in your car". Nobody will ever implement all the corner cases. It is not commercially worthwhile. Perhaos there will be "Manual driving past this point" signs.

Freeway entrance to exit good weather self driving could be revealed on the 22nd, by contrast.

Ok, this is making more sense to me now. With current technology, this appears true. Won't technology eventually solve the weather issue and corner cases? Won't road technology change even as limited FSD takes off? Current roads are not at all designed to assist autonomous driving. Once the vast majority of cars, and eventually all cars, go with autonomous driving, it becomes far easier to solve the corner cases, doesn't it? Many, if not all, of the corner cases are the result of the existing situation with human drivers. Weather is different, but I think technology both in vehicle and on the road should be able to solve that eventually. This will take decades of changes to cars and roads, but it seems to me it will eventually get there.

 

[Tslynk67]

You're probably right. I'd expect Musk to be boasting about this if true.

Pretty easy to date as it's a pre-facelift, nosecone Model S.

 

[Tslynk67]

Geez,finally caught up after my medical trip. Not much news, but with insomnia why not catch up...

24 pages still to go for me!

 

[Buddyroe]

Did you mean longer here? Otherwise your statement confuses me.

I think he said it right - the closer you are, the closer each vehicle's speed will be when the car in the rear runs into the back of the lead car, and the less the impact will be. If you have a long following distance, which gives the lead car plenty of room to slow down before the impact, the worse the impact and accident will be.

Make sense? Yea, me either. But I tried.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Yeah, the bus agency would win that one. Long story. They have to swing out, the road is too narrow not to. End result if you tried that, rules changed for benefit of bus, all cars must stop 40 feet before intersection. New problem for self driving car to deal with.

Not so much a new problem, as a new rule. Obvious compromise there is to bring the stop line back to leave maneuvering room for large vehicles.

 

[brian45011]

Tesla misclassified many of my warranty repairs as goodwill. Had they not repaired, I would have sued, won, and they would have paid for repairs plus legal costs. If they have been misclassifying routinely, a lot of this will end up in warranty rather than goodwill. That said I have heard of others who got real goodwill repairs.

The significantly negative gross margin for Services & Other begs a more detail explanation than has been provided thus far.

 

[SOULPEDL]

SEC settlement forces Tesla to give Elon Musk adult supervision

He is not wrong. While I do not believe full everywhere all conditions level 5 FSD is possible, the fact is that "partial self driving" also depends on the best dataset, and Tesla has an uncatchable lead.

I should emphasize that what is never happening is "everywhere, all conditions, any time, sleep in your car". Nobody will ever implement all the corner cases. It is not commercially worthwhile. Perhaos there will be "Manual driving past this point" signs.

Freeway entrance to exit good weather self driving could be revealed on the 22nd, by contrast.

I was just thinking this yesterday... is it possible he has engaged in legal talks with authorities on making freeways hands free with proof of safety in hand? I would expect FSD to roll out in zones or cities gradually. That would be sweat even just showing first steps!

 

[JRP3]

and for surface streets, crossing pedestrians mean it is basically impossible

We've seen videos of Model 3 stopping for pedestrians in parking lots when using advanced summon mode.

 

[azaz]

Model 3’s show up in the new inventory section on the site now.

Will be interesting to track over time. 45 show up under my zip code, most of them SR+.

Also as to Neroden’s point, sales growth has helped by expansion of stores and service centers. Slowing expansion down has the opposite effect imo.

 

[neroden]

We've seen videos of Model 3 stopping for pedestrians in parking lots when using advanced summon mode.

Sorry I was unclear. To clarify what is impossible it is the throughput benefit which is impossible. Of course cars can stop for pedestrians. You will not see increased throughput over manually drivien cars on surface streets.

 

[Tslynk67]

And a follow-up article with lots of data on the individual brand, the impact of the switch to WLTP and the fall of diesel, and as bonus, an interactive module to examine the emissions of individual models: Autobouwers ver van Europese CO2-uitstootdoelen

Ha, I love that final graph! Bugatti's fine will end up costing more than their revolting cars...

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Elon is motivated by money too, lets not be naive. He is now accustomed to a life style that is hard
To come down from. Fame glory 100 million dollar house compound, jetting worldwide, and on and on.
He is not mother Teresa. He is generous but not naive.

Elon Musk is to the point where he doesn't need to worry about money...for himself. He cares about his companies making money in the long run fir the success and well being of the companies and their employees but as to personal gain I think it's pretty trivial to him. Like Bezos' divorce settlement. You think it's going to change his lifestyle? Ah...no.

Dan

 

[Tslynk67]

Its been a few decades so I don't remember the exact method, but in high school the club I was in was the only club that was ever on time. The teacher's method was quite simple and it might have been the "make a best estimate and double it." The basic pessimism that underlay the success of the methodology impressed me even though I've neglected the exact method.

If you want to have Elon's timelines put into perspective, just ask a software engineer for a milestone timeline...

Concur with this. When I was a developer I learned, after many years of pain, that my estimates were always half the time taken. Once I applied the 2x multiplier I was very accurate.

 

[lklundin]

Never say never.
Although, with the qualifier in your next sentence, I agree. Human drivers are the main problem for safe robotic drivers. Humans will abuse the robo-drivers to cut them off, driving more aggressively. I believe the solution will be that human drivers will be gradually outlawed once the technology is available universally (most cars on the road will have the capability). First on highways, it will be forbidden to drive manually, then it will spread to cities, then smaller roads, lastly to rural areas. This will be driven by insurance companies and cost of lives and emergency services.

For highways the gradual transition to autonomy can be done by restricting one lane at a time to autonomous vehicles, starting with the innermost one confining humans to the slower lane(s).