Stocks A to Z / Stocks T / Tesla (TSLA)
No. of Recommendations: 0
A Tesla Model Y just delivered itself from the Texas Gigafactory to a customer 30 minutes away, for the first time, and you can see that some people really don't want to believe it:
sykesix (on the Falling Knives board):
"That's a lot more than what Elon said happened. He said no safety operator intervened. Which is indeed a remarkable feat of technology. But that's not the same as no safety operator at all. If there was no safety operator involved he would have said so. He and Tesla also never mentioned a geofence, which means there was a geofence."This is what Musk had posted :
“There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous! To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully autonomous drive with no people in the car or remotely operating the car on a public highway.”So Musk didn't just say that 'no safety operator intervened', he said there was no one in the car, and no one controlling it from a distance. They probably did have someone watching what is was doing, and the whole thing was recorded, but it is hard to argue that this wasn't just what it was claimed to be, a bona fide self-delivery.
Given the number of skeptical commments, like the quoted post, Tesla has provided some additional information about the delivery, including the full 30 minute ride. Here is a sped-up version that takes 3 minutes, for anyone like me who doesn't have enough patience to watch the whole thing:
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-silences-fsd-criti... Tesla and Tesla investors are really at a crossroads. There's no way you can justify Tesla's lofty valuation ($1b, or 185 times earnings) based on flat or declining car sales, but if Robotaxis and Optimus robots really turn out to be useful, you can easily argue that Tesla's profits are going to explode upwards, and the current price might be a pretty good deal. Being more of a skeptic than a fan, I would put the latter at maybe a 30% chance, but it's enough for me to justify a 1% stake, and I might buy a bit more if the price continues to drop. More of a speculation than an investment, of course.
Regards, DTB
No. of Recommendations: 0
Tesla and Tesla investors are really at a crossroads. There's no way you can justify Tesla's lofty valuation ($1b, or 185 times earnings) based on flat or declining car sales, but if Robotaxis and Optimus robots really turn out to be useful, you can easily argue that Tesla's profits are going to explode upwards, and the current price might be a pretty good deal. Being more of a skeptic than a fan, I would put the latter at maybe a 30% chance, but it's enough for me to justify a 1% stake, and I might buy a bit more if the price continues to drop. More of a speculation than an investment, of course.
This act of bravery, while under direct fire from a numerically superior adversary qualifies you for the highest French military award: The Légion d’Honneur.
No. of Recommendations: 1
So Musk didn't just say that 'no safety operator intervened', he said there was no one in the car, and no one controlling it from a distance. They probably did have someone watching what is was doing, and the whole thing was recorded, but it is hard to argue that this wasn't just what it was claimed to be, a bona fide self-delivery.
Those are identical statements right? The person watching it is what I called the safety operator. You can call it a a remote monitor or what ever you like, but there was a person ready to intervene in case of trouble. As far as I can tell, we're in agreement.
This is the claim that I responded to:
True camera-only FSD. No safety driver/observer.
As you point out, there was a safety observer. It would be irresponsible not to have one, especially the first time. As I said previously this a remarkable technical achievement, but I see no reason to inflate it beyond what actually happened.
No. of Recommendations: 0
So Musk didn't just say that 'no safety operator intervened', he said there was no one in the car, and no one controlling it from a distance. They probably did have someone watching what is was doing, and the whole thing was recorded, but it is hard to argue that this wasn't just what it was claimed to be, a bona fide self-delivery.
Those are identical statements right?
Actually, no. There is a difference between "no safety operator intervened" and "there was no safety operator". The latter would show a lot more confidence in the service.
But the more important point is that such confidence looks like it is probably misplaced. The fact that after just a few recorded robotaxi rides in Austin, under perfect conditions, there were some pretty major obvious driving mistakes, indicates to me that they are still a long way from letting cars drive safely without human drivers, and it makes me wonder why they are pushing ahead with robotaxis OR self-delivery. The robotaxi rides make it clear that they are not ready yet, and self-delivery is just as dangerous for the other road users as a robotaxi. So it is hard to see why they wouldn't need a human operator, whether in the car or remotely, for both robotaxis and for self-deliveries.
Maybe the company is desperate for some good news, but if it's not ready, it's not ready, and rolling these things out when it's not ready will get them in the news all right, but not the way they want.
dtb
No. of Recommendations: 2
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully autonomous drive with no people in the car or remotely operating the car on a public highway.”
Elon probably just forgot about Waymo, which has driven MILLIONS of miles autonomously. Yes, they have safety officers who can control them remotely, but my understanding is they only look in when told to by the car or passengers. When they drop off their passengers, they drive to the next pickup request autonomously with no people in the car. They have 10 million paid rides, so Waymo driven fully autonomously with no people in the car to its next pickup MILLIONS of times.
Maybe he meant this was Tesla's first fully autonomous drive with no people in the car.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Some of you may have noticed my lack of comity recently. It's the result of having to read a never-ending stream of nonsense about Elon and Tesla. I've just decided it's too much trouble to be nice when people either have no respect for the truth or are willing to believe the most ridiculous nonsense because it fits their anti-Elon narrative.
So far today was someone who wanted to engage in a semantic argument when everyone already knows the difference between a safety driver/observer and a remote or teleoperator. I choose not to engage. (I'd be embarrassed too if I said something wasn't going to happen for years and it happened six days later.)
Someone accuses Elon of rushing FSD to market and endangering lives. Who cares that Tesla makes by far the safest cars, will save millions of lives with this new FSD technology and will also save the millions of lives of people who will not get sick from inhaling the toxic fumes ICE cars put out. But who cares about kids getting cancer when it doesn't fit the anti-Elon narrative?
"PUBLIC HIGHWAYS," read it again. Why so quick to think the smartest guy in the world and expert in this field doesn't know what he's talking about?
None of you have the courage to think for yourselves. You take comfort in being part of a collective. Basically, you're all Borg.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Someone accuses Elon of rushing FSD to market and endangering lives. Who cares that Tesla makes by far the safest cars, will save millions of lives with this new FSD technology and will also save the millions of lives of people who will not get sick from inhaling the toxic fumes ICE cars put out.
Since that someone may have been me, let me say that I try to keep an open mind. I think Musk deserves a ton of credit for what he has achieved with Tesla and with his other ventures too. And I have no doubt that Tesla will eventually get FSD to the point where it is safer than having a human driving, and will thereby save millions of lives.
But is the company there yet? Have you seen the videos of Robotaxis driving through left-turn lanes, bumping other cars and stopping in the middle of the street for no obvious reason, except maybe the glare of the sun? Given the fact that there have only been a few dozen of these cars driving around for a few days, it seems hard to believe they are quite there yet. Do you have some other explanation for this?
No. of Recommendations: 1
But is the company there yet? Have you seen the videos of Robotaxis driving through left-turn lanes, bumping other cars and stopping in the middle of the street for no obvious reason, except maybe the glare of the sun? Given the fact that there have only been a few dozen of these cars driving around for a few days, it seems hard to believe they are quite there yet. Do you have some other explanation for this?
I've been watching their FSD progress very closely for the last five years. Without AI Tesla is worth at most a few hundred Billion. It's hard to know why AI models do what they do but programmers have gotten much better in the last year understanding where hallucinations are coming from and how to fix them. In the cases you describe my guess is that the models are simply doing what humans do: glare in your eyes you slow down. Of course the car can still see fine but the humans that it's trying to mimic can't ... so the FSD ends up slowing down too. What do you do when you start to make a wrong turn? Look around and see if you can salvage it. With no traffic conflicts you cross a few yellow lines and get back on course. No guess on what went wrong in the other instances. After thousands of near perfect rides I'd say the beta test is going very well. Of course they have Billions of miles travelled in their data banks to draw training from and test their new builds. So, it's not just a dozen cars driving around Austin. Seems to me that ever since they went "nothing but net" they've been hitting their targets and seem very confident about FSD's success. Also seems reasonable to me to ignore past failures in their timelines - Elon did warn a few years ago that he now believed that they would have to solve for a limited AGI for FSD to work. Now he's saying that he expects artificial superintelligence to be solved this year or next. The pace of progress in AI in extremely fast right now. Buffett wants the fish dumped out of the barrel and waits until they stop moving before he shoots. I want in before the full diaper crowd figures out what's happening.
