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Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

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Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#91

Post by Judgmentality »

DennisP wrote: post #84
close04 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but they have a vastly superior processing unit to make sense of those images. The question isn't necessarily if binocular vision is better than LIDAR or not but rather which one works best with the current crop of artificial brains and algorithms. I am not considering here situations where either system is impaired since that will lead to varied degrees of failure with both.

True, but lots of animals with much smaller visual cortexes also manage to avoid running into things.

This is a good point, but it ignores the often forgotten other half of the equation - human (or in this case animal) eyes. The human eye has orders of magnitude more dynamic range than the best DSLR cameras. This means in edge cases the camera will not see something important, such as a person, when a human will. And when I say the camera will not see it, I mean even a person looking at the camera will not see it, because the image is obscured or washed out or something similar.

Garbage in garbage out. Don't skimp on your sensors.

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#92

Post by dragontamer »

Robotbeat wrote: post #90
dragontamer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ASICs are all well and good when you can afford them AND when you have the volume to sustain them. The main issue is that Tesla can't afford them. They have $2.2 Billion in cash remaining and are currently losing money at a rate of $700 Million/quarter. Tesla's cash reserves are nose-diving and they're busy doing vanity projects like a self-driving ASIC, when their volume of cars being produced is well under 300k / y…

All the more reason for them to go with the proven and far cheaper 14nm process node rather than 7nm (which Intel/MobilEye have had difficulties with as far as yields). https://www.techpowerup.com/248008/intel-at-least-5-years-be... EDIT: Corrected below. MobilEye is using TSMC even though they're owned by Intel.

Intel/MobilEye is using TSMC 7nm for the EyeQ5 chip. There won't be any issues.

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333990

TSMC 7nm has already deployed the iPhone A12, the iPad A12x, and AMD's Radeon VII. Its mature and ready for mass production.

-------

The problem with Tesla's 14nm chip is that their capabilities are about to be leap-frogged by a commercial-off-the-shelf solution in just a year. Note that the EyeQ5 is sampling TODAY. MobilEye is aiming at cars being deployed with the thing for 2020.

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#93

Post by Robotbeat »

dragontamer wrote: post #92
Robotbeat wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the more reason for them to go with the proven and far cheaper 14nm process node rather than 7nm (which Intel/MobilEye have had difficulties with as far as yields). https://www.techpowerup.com/248008/intel-at-least-5-years-be... EDIT: Corrected below. MobilEye is using TSMC even though they're owned by Intel.

Intel/MobilEye is using TSMC 7nm for the EyeQ5 chip. There won't be any issues. https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333990 TSMC 7nm has already deployed the iPhone A12, the iPad A12x, and AMD's Radeon VII. Its mature and ready for mass production. ------- The problem with Tesla's 14nm chip is that their capabilities are about to be leap-frogged by a commercial-off-the-shelf solution in just a year. Note that…

Being potentially "leap frogged" in a couple years is only a problem if you're not planning on improving the chip in that time. Tesla is, in fact, planning on deploying an improved NN chip in 2 years (currently in development). They can use whatever process is available at that time.

And thank you for the correction about Intel/MobilEye using TSMC instead. Of course, anyone can use TSMC, so there's less vertical integration advantage for Intel/MobilEye than I had previously expected.

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#94

Post by StrangeDoctor »

DennisP wrote: post #84
close04 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but they have a vastly superior processing unit to make sense of those images. The question isn't necessarily if binocular vision is better than LIDAR or not but rather which one works best with the current crop of artificial brains and algorithms. I am not considering here situations where either system is impaired since that will lead to varied degrees of failure with both.

True, but lots of animals with much smaller visual cortexes also manage to avoid running into things.

But not when moving at highway speeds with many other moving objects.

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#95

Post by gamblor956 »

WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #83
gamblor956 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the article originally said, so it appears that it's been updated since then. Good think I quoted the relevant section of the article in my comment... That being said, existing self-driving cars already have some cameras at that level without displaying the sort of accuracy the researchers found, which relates to the methodology issues other commenters have noted.

That quote I posted was the sentences just before the ones you selected. Why don't you read the paper a bit - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.07179.pdf And then work out why they used the words "birds eye" that you found so upsetting.

Thanks for the paper. I actually agree with those complaining about the methodology of the paper and if anything, having read the article I agree it even more strongly states why LIDAR is essential for the foreseeable future.

The research paper, in a nutshell, was about transforming stereovisual images to psuedo-birds eye data, like roof-mounted LIDAR. This, theoretically, would result in about a 350% improvement over current vision-based methods...but still only 50% of that of existing LIDAR systems. In exchange, you just have to 1) convert the stereovisual data to a 3d point cloud, 2) transform the point cloud to birds-eye perspective, and 3) run the LIDAR systems on the point cloud, and 4) do that all in milli-seconds.

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#96

Post by notfromhere »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #22
notfromhere wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not real, it's not going to happen, and setting up even a human rideshare service is going to take longer than 12 months

I have already delegated access to my Model S to other Tesla account holders through customer service (manual process). Seems to automate it is straightforward? Tesla could replace Turo for Teslas fairly rapidly IMHO (and possibly Zipcar!). Supporting Lyft/Uber functionality would of course be more effort, but also doable. This isn't trying to go to the Mars ( insert chuckle here ). Even if you discount full autonomy…

So Tesla is going to enter an industry that actively loses money based on an autonomy play that doesn't exist and isn't even legal on most U.S. roads?

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#97

Post by notfromhere »

Nokinside wrote: post #23
brianpgordon wrote: post #2

> a fleet of self-driving vehicles that will make their way into the robotaxi service as soon as next year. So... are we living on the same planet? Does Musk seriously think that Tesla will have solved full autonomous driving, with no LIDAR, and have commercialized a functioning robotaxi service, by next year ? This is so far outside of the realm of possibility that it's like saying he's going to Pluto next week.

It seems to be completely pie in the sky type of thinking. The only rational -non delusional- reason I see for the talk is if Musk does it to get better financing terms before the self driving hype dries down. I think taxi services without driver are coming but the the secret sauce is remote human operator working together with high level of automation. Driver is the main cost of taxi service. If you get one operator…

So humans that can barely drive a single vehicle will now be responsible for monitoring 20 vehicles in highly different environments that change at a moments notice?

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#98

Post by close04 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #63
Judgmentality wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthony Levandowski is so sleazy he makes Vinod Khosla look like a good guy. He is (well, was) one of the most untrustworthy people in the Valley, so much so he had to leave for China to start his next company because even local VCs - who care about money and nothing but money - found him too sketchy to work with.

You can be sleazy and untrustworthy and still be smart and right. I wouldn't use VC funding as signaling, considering how many VC folks blindly funded Theranos (which wasn't just outright fraud, but abusive pursuit of whistleblowers). It's fairly clear machine vision is going to surpass LIDAR in the near future (taking capability and cost into account), doesn't take a robotics expert to see that.

Probably has nothing to do with the fact that a lot of LIDAR related tech and research now belong to Waymo and Uber. Add to this the cost of LIDAR and it starts making sense that anyone (re)starting in this field would avoid LIDAR and go for the cheaper and more accessible option.

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#99

Post by matz1 »

dragontamer wrote: post #70
matz1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vertical integration. Tesla can have the chip solely focused on their specific needs. They ignore google/waymo because they won't sell them the chip anyway.

Elon Musk is pretending like Tesla can make money from this self-driving taxi idea. You can't make money from self-driving Taxis if Google/Waymo simply offers a similar service for cheaper right next to you. And yes, Google/Waymo has the vertical integration thing all figured out too. Now if you think that maybe Tesla's chip is useful for its M3 customers... sure. I strongly disagree with that fact, but you're certai…

>if Google/Waymo simply offers a similar service for cheaper right next to you

Right, if, tesla currently has the advantage being ahead, they have self driving (at some level) currently deployed for masses.

Re: Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer

#100

Post by notfromhere »

Robotbeat wrote: post #75
mplewis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon/Tesla have a vested interest in making sure LIDAR isn't required by law for self-driving vehicles. In addition, his NN-camera-powered-cars are still trying to drive themselves into highway barriers.

Requiring a specific technical solution with problems of its own by law is a wet dream for whoever holds the IP to that technical solution. Now accusing others of having a vested interest in MAYBE opposing this hypothetical law that no one has actually proposed is just gas-lighting and possibly projection.

LiDAR means he'd have to retrofit vehicles, given how he promised every purchaser that their cars are self-driving ready.

LiDAR literally will cost him money, so yeah, that's a conflict.

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