On the topic of FSD - Tesla has demonstrated great progress, and I’m prepared to be amazed by the capabilities of the feature-complete FSD system. But have they overcome the difficulty of identifying stationary objects? I’m thinking of the well publicized cases of fatal accidents where drivers were not paying attention and the autopilot system drove straight into a parked fire truck and a highway barrier. My understanding was that this was a fundamental limitation of the autopilot imaging system. I guess they must have solved this with HW3 and the new neural net & advanced processor and use of multiple cameras etc. But I just haven’t seen a specific announcement of “Autopilot can now detect and avoid stationary objects safely up to x mph”
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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
I have tremendous respect for both of your opinions but disagree.
Tesla plans to ramp up to 20M EVs/year, including Semis, pickups and other battery intensive vehicles, plus as much as a TWh/year of storage. While there may be short periods when they have excess battery capacity, locking up capacity in contracts to other oems would almost certainly slow down growth toward that incredibly ambitious target.
Also, the marginal profit Tesla could make from selling 100,000 skateboards per year (for example), would be dwarfed by the profits from 100,000 additional Tesla vehicle sales enabled by manufacturing those skateboards. This is especially true factoring in the enormous profits that can be made when the Tesla Network is activated. Unless they sell skateboards bundled with FSD the value of using batteries for vehicles capable of being in the Tesla Network will dwarf other uses.
Also, as far as the mission, vehicles in the Tesla Network will be driven 4-5X the number of miles/km of vehicles that aren't. EVs in the Tesla Network will displace far more oil than EVs that aren't and using batteries for those vehicles will do far more to accelerate the world to sustainable transportation.
So I doubt they'll get into the skateboard business any time soon. If they do, I suspect it will be in small quantities. For example, if they have contractual obligations to buy cells from Panasonic they no longer want for their own vehicles or storage, they might use them to make packs and skateboards to sell to other oems and earn a little cash on the side.
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EVNow
Well-Known Member
I'm still waiting for articles titled "The Insane Shortsightedness of Buying a Gas Car".
I guess the mainstream media is about 10 years too late - they are a lagging indicator.
The way lidar mapping works is that it subtracts the stored map from the current lidar measurement results. So any change compared to the map stands out. In fact it is very easy to detect a fridge or tree with a lidar and more reliable than cameras even without having the map stored.
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I don't see anyone having a proven path to the goal until they reach it.
Waymo is testing in 26 cities. And additionally they are testing self driving trucks. Since trucks can swallow the cost of the equipment easily I give it a high chance that Waymo self driving semis will be on the road before Tesla semi could self drive without supervising.
I can't make heads or tails of that chart. So if I'm to understand it right, Tesla doesn't and won't respond to animals? Waymo won't drive on roads with a marked centre line? How does any of that make any sense whatsoever?
Off Shore
Off Topic Member
Sorry for the delay in commenting; I've been traveling to the Island of Tesla Deprivation. Contrary to an earlier post, OEMs' cars are stuffed with computers, mostly small and not upgradeable, and almost all from suppliers, not from in-house. Upgrading a software stack is a chore; upgrading multiple stacks from multiple sources is a nightmare.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Added the following to the post.
(edit :
NHTSA : What NHTSA has given guidance in terms of FSD.
Waymo + : Features Waymo lists as targets, in addition to NHTSA features.
Tracking FSD Feature Complete )
NHTSA : What NHTSA has given guidance in terms of FSD.
Waymo + : Features Waymo lists as targets, in addition to NHTSA features.
Tracking FSD Feature Complete )
Would a tracking system pay off more in Northern states? Probably keeps off and removes snow faster.
Off Shore
Off Topic Member
This is as good a post as any to assert that Tesla and Waymo are working on different things, (geo-fenced autonomy vs. autonomy, and it's pretty useless to compare tham.
3Victoria
Active Member
Comparing either two cameras or frames separated in time can give 3d information similar to Lidar. Lidar is sensitive rain/precipitation. Different sensors are useful for different purposes. Choosing the smallest sufficient set is most efficient. Less is more.
Given the rapid advance of AI in games, rapid advances in driving can be expected. The Tesla self-driving demo likely had a hacked map/route/driving layer attached to the object recognition AI level. I expect this is now mostly integrated into the AI.
I do not understand why people bring up ridiculous edge cases. I can't drive everywhere in any weather. I can misinterpret, too.
Given the rapid advance of AI in games, rapid advances in driving can be expected. The Tesla self-driving demo likely had a hacked map/route/driving layer attached to the object recognition AI level. I expect this is now mostly integrated into the AI.
I do not understand why people bring up ridiculous edge cases. I can't drive everywhere in any weather. I can misinterpret, too.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Not really. Ultimately the big money is in robotaxis - and both of them target that.
Waymo doesn't need to make a cheap autonomy system that can be put on all cars - they just need to get their system to work on top 100 or 200 cities.
erha
Member
How was forex a positive during Q3? Doesn’t make sense for me. The dollar is getting stronger, right? So, when Tesla sell cars in foreign currencies they are getting less usd per car.
I’d assume they gain some if they have to pay suppliers in foreign currency, but I can’t see how forex became a net positive in Q3.
I’d assume they gain some if they have to pay suppliers in foreign currency, but I can’t see how forex became a net positive in Q3.
The above posts talk about wrong point.
Does it make sense for Tesla to help competitors from the financial standpoint? None whatsoever. If you want to maximize profits, kill them and get as much market share as you can.
But EM talked about the mission. Here the issue is that Tesla may not ramp up fast enough to make as much impact as early as possible as they would like. Just can't spend money fast enough and scale.
The ramping speed of other market participants is important in this context - the earlier they start, the sooner they ramp to meaningful numbers, so waiting a few years before sharing tech is not helpful. With very limited progress so far on their side and per Gali's video with much higher battery costs, they may not be able to compete on their own.
I am against Tesla sharing their own new cells/manufacturing capacity if they can sell 100% of those cells.
Maybe they can sell the output from older Panasonic cell lines once they switch to Maxwell or completely remove those lines from GF1 and sell to anybody interested, b/c those cells have higher costs and lower life and do not represent Tesla's excellence anymore.
On the other hand, this older/slower manufacturing tech represents a hindrance to the transition to EVs(not max speed possible), so maybe licensing out the newest tech helps the mission more.
I could see Tesla saying to OEMs - here's how you make the batteries, you finance the whole thing (GFs) without drawing our resources, you pay us this much per unit, we don't customize our software for you, you don't compete with us for raw materials, you're on your own using this.
Why not? Yes, it is helping competition, but this is balancing between the mission and profits.
Tesla could grab 50% market, but after this they may only get to 20%(FSD excluded).
What we get in exchange is potential climate change reversal.
Elon said that spoiler is just for some measurements and will be removed.
Wipers actually had some lower scores on the Bloomberg's survey. I also don't like Auto.
I think they are just neglected temporarily, b/c more value can be achieved elsewhere.
MarketWatch - today: The signals are ‘loud and clear’ — a new bull market is underway, strategist says
Re, disengagement reports: most people mistakenly think that this means that "every time the driver takes the wheel, you have to issue a disengagement report. That's not how it works.
California’s self-driving car reports are imperfect, but they’re better than nothing
A disengagement report only needs to be filed if the human driver decides that the reason that they took control of the wheel was due to "safety" or a "failure". Driver takes control to avoid missing a turn? To not block an intersection? To not annoy other drivers? None of those things count as a disengagement. And those sorts of things are the vast majority of the reason why people take control over from Autopilot as well.
Also, while Waymo "tests" in a number of cities (including a winter proving grounds in Michigan), notice how they only have public operations in places that never get snow? Yeah, because this:
... will render LIDAR basically useless for detecting road obstacle detections. Forget about "falling snow", ridges of snow on the road are indistinguishable from tree braches or children laying across the road. And it's like that all winter in northern climates.
Doesn't just change the surface of the road with random ridges and troughs and blocks... it also changes the sides of your road.
Medians may widen and go windy. Shoulders frequently disappear, and may intrude into the road. Parking spaces may turn into huge snowpiles. Your landmarks on the edge of the road may be totally transformed.
It's not just about how to deal with driving on slippery roads and how to recognize changes in how slippery a surface may be, how to navigate to less slippery parts, etc etc. That's an entirely separate, and critical, issue. No, it's not about how falling or blowing snow blocks LIDAR. Again, that's yet another issue. No, even before you get to that point, when it comes to snow accumulation, to LIDAR, it's all an obstacle. It has no idea how to tell snow accumulation apart from anything else.
The Accountant
Active Member
Fair question. Here are my thoughts:
Upside to margins:
- Wright's Law continues
Driven by:
- more units produced in the USA over the same fixed costs (maybe 10k more units than Q3)
- continued productivity gains on variable costs (less waste, less labor)
- continued product sourcing savings from vendors
Downside to margins:
- GF3 scaling
There is more upside to margins than downside in my opinion. I believe the GF3 margin hit won't be material in Q4 - perhaps more of a Q1 2020 issue. Fixed assets are only depreciated once they are "placed in service". To be Placed in Service, the asset needs to be fully validated and even then, some of the assets (e.g. tooling) are depreciated using the units-of-production method (having no ramp-up penalty).
Also - remember that the margin impact for GF3 is only impacted by cars delivered (sold); some of it will sit in inventory (unless there is a charge to COGS for "idle capacity" - but that's a more complicated accounting topic to assess).
Of course I could be wrong but this is why I am expecting continued margin improvement.
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