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

[AlexS]

How do you know what it does and does not recognize in shadow mode? Green has shown that it does see traffic lights today. So before we get to use the features, it runs in shadow mode. Also there are mounts of examples where the car would have done something differently then the human, this creates examples for training. I think your not understanding what I am saying. AP is always engaged even if you are not using it. When you turn the wheel to avoid something that AP would have proceeded to go through, that creates a delta. if the Delta is large enough, say the car moved x feet off the path the car would have taken, then its flagged for someone potentially to look at. Now they cannot look at everyone, but as they work through the process they will have less and less to even consider.

Elon mentioned and they showed a picture of a new system they are building. I believe its based on the returned DrivePX computers that they will get out of the cars as they upgrade them. They are going to rack them and use them for training. Imagine 100k AP2.0/2.5 computers in a rack that are crunching corner cases. Overtime those would be replaced with FSD1 and FSD2 computers once the costs come down and maybe a die shrink so that the costs of run the damn thing will save enough to pay for them.

wow I am not sure where I have been living and missed that video from Green, thank you for telling that it is there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umzFDfJvhLQ

 

[Matias]

The initiator of this letter is a guy called Aaron Greenspan who claims to have founded Facebook

It is amazing, how many people have invented Facebook!

 

[EVNow]

Yeah but AP in city driving is pretty much lane keeping. It doesn't recognize signs and can't do any of the actual self driving stuff like intersections and turns. I mean we can all agree teslas can drive a straight line pretty well when there are line markings( and not so much when there isn't).

Curved roads and poorer markings as well. This is where disengagements (and training) happen. I use it all the time now.

In terms of shadow mode, we can assume all the things that was shown in the demo.

For eg. from Jan we have had traffic sign/signal recognition, if you see Green's video.

 

[AlexS]

Half way through the quarter and no Raven cars, I think Tesla has a production problem

Well from S and X threads it seems that deliveries of Raven will start after 21st of May

 

[pnungesser]

Don't limit overtime! I've done the calculations many time in the past and the actual hourly cost of overtime at time and a half can be cheaper. Many cost are fixed and don't increase with overtime. Medical insurance is one and contributions to retirement plans are often calculated on "base" salary. I don't know Tesla's details, but where I worked in the past, paying reasonable overtime was always cheaper than hiring additional staff. Workers liked it too.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Kind of interesting news. Our Tesla guy in Vancouver BC told us in an email they had 800 orders last week. Now averaging 600 - 700 per week. That’s 10 percent of production. Kinda cool. They might have to step up their Canadian version production somewhat. I suspect Quebec is similar. If so that would put about 15 to 20 percent of Tesla production going to Canada.

 

[Creekstalker]

Kind of interesting news. Our Tesla guy in Vancouver BC told us in an email they had 800 orders last week. Now averaging 600 - 700 per week. That’s 10 percent of production. Kinda cool. They might have to step up their Canadian version production somewhat. I suspect Quebec is similar. If so that would put about 15 to 20 percent of Tesla production going to Canada.

Maybe Canada can be the new Norway

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Maybe Canada can be the new Norway

Heh heh. Who knows. There are a bunch of threes in our little town though. Nice to see.

 

[kbM3]

Seems Tesla just increased Model 3 price by $400 in the US.

Not sure in other markets.

Used to be $39,500, now $39,900.
400 is not a lot, but raising price seems a little good sign.
View attachment 407518

The LR RWD actually dropped in price. It went up $1400, but now includes the $3k Autopilot. I’m supposed to receive my AWD tomorrow and would probably switch to RWD for more range, except they also increased FSD by $1k since I ordered.

Just to clarify, the guidance for Q2 was 90,000 to 100,000 deliveries. We started the quarter with 10,500 cars in transit; I.e., these cars will most certainly represent 10,500 deliveries for Q2.

Tesla is supposed to start/continue undoing the wave in q2. That would mean more than 10.5k in transit at end of q2.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Yeah but AP in city driving is pretty much lane keeping. It doesn't recognize signs and can't do any of the actual self driving stuff like intersections and turns. I mean we can all agree teslas can drive a straight line pretty well when there are line markings( and not so much when there isn't).

There’s a bit more than that going on behind the scenes. There’s certainly speed light recognition, though it’s only used to give a warning.

 

[acoste]

Not only that, but the semi has 4 motors, each mounted to a separate wheel so they have a much simpler gearbox than the transaxle used on the 3. Diesel trucks also have a heavy differential that the Tesla semi eliminates.

The motors are in front and behind the axle and there is a big differential/transmission in between them. Nothing eliminated there.

 

[dc_h]

Can anybody understand Vietnamese? This is what mobileye can do off the shelf:

He seemed to drive the whole time. It had a lane monitor and told him if he was drifting or too close. I'm sure MobileEye is doing more than that, but this was level 1 assist in the video, with some very positive reviewing.
I don't speak the language, but the body language vs the actual results were at odds with my expectations.

 

[dww12]

Yeah but AP in city driving is pretty much lane keeping. It doesn't recognize signs and can't do any of the actual self driving stuff like intersections and turns. I mean we can all agree teslas can drive a straight line pretty well when there are line markings( and not so much when there isn't).

Um, you push the turn signal and it changes lanes for you (I have actually started to trust and appreciate this in heavy multi-lane traffic). You put a destination in the nav and drive it to the interatate and it does the rest. That is a lot more than lane keeping. Hands on the wheel is 15 1/2 learner’s permit, temporary. AP is going to grow up very fast.

 

[UncaNed]

No differential. Why is raw hamburger all over the 5th wheel?

 

[jerry33]

If Tesla ever makes an ad, what would be the key messages?

1) fast and spirited driving -- This one
2) FSD/AP -- The average consumer won't believe until it really happens and is common
3) environment / emission -- The average consumer doesn't care/doesn't believe there is a problem (at least not where I live)
4) cost of ownership - The average consumer doesn't believe.
5) reliability -- The average consumer doesn't believe (Remember "Quality was job one" only it wasn't)
6) OTA/ tech -- This one
7) American auto taking back the lead after many decades -- This one, maybe
8) spacex package in roadster -- This one
9) mobile servicing -- This one

10) No scheduled maintenance required. -- This one

Basically the message is convenience and cool factor.

 

[Paracelsus]

Sorry if this 49 second long video was already posted. Once again the most successful solution may simply be to mimic the intelligence that nature has already perfected (this time for autonomous driving patterns)

 

[Singuy]

Um, you push the turn signal and it changes lanes for you. You put a destination in the nav and drive it to the interatate and it does the rest. That is a lot more than lane keeping. Hands on the wheel is 15 1/2 learner’s permit, temporary. AP is going to grow up very fast.

I am talking about city streets in which nav on auto pilot doesn't work. I have the FSD package and know it's limitations. I am just wondering how Tesla is training the "city streets" Ai if no one can give it feedback via disengagements except a few Tesla employee.

 

[Curt Renz]

Two webinars that should be of interest to Tesla shareholders will be conducted today. Tesla is the #1 holding in ARK Invest’s ETFs. They are very actively managed and may be discussed by CFRA. We can type questions during the Q&A sessions toward the end of each webinar.

CFRA
Webinar: Understanding Actively Managed ETFs
11:00 am EDT
Registration: Understanding Actively Managed ETFs

ARK Invest
Webinar: May Monthly
1:30 pm EDT
Registration: https://register.gotowebinar.com/re...&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-2398137084

 

[Nocturnal]

Do we know when/how the Fiat money will be hitting Tesla's books? I assume it's spread out over time but that's a huge chunk of cash no matter how you book it.

Flat as in, same delivery numbers as Q1 ? I don't think that would be good.

I hope it will be atleast 10k more i.e. 75k+.

I don't have a sense of where things are now - with half the quarter over - Model 3 inventory is low, so must be selling fine. Not sure about S+X, as the refreshed cars are not out yet. May be we'll see another frenzied delivery session in June. I don't think the wave is ending this quarter.

Flat as in profit/loss. If they can pull it back to a small loss that would a pretty good scenario I think.

 

[Swampgator]

I am talking about city streets in which nav on auto pilot doesn't work. I have the FSD package and know it's limitations. I am just wondering how Tesla is training the "city streets" Ai if no one can give it feedback via disengagements except a few Tesla employee.

I think you misunderstand the way Tesla is learning here.
The car when driven in the city manually still has autopilot/fsd programs running in shadow mode. Tesla compares what the shadow mode would do vs what the actual driver does. When they differ (I don't know their triggers) they have that data uploaded and use machine learning to try and predict a better path in the future. AT least that is how Elon has explained it,