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Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

jalopnik.com

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Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone built a dozen companies, and like a third of them succeeded and made him one of (if not the) richest man in the world, I think you could say that that person "has an incredible track record of success" and I don't even like this guy, but this is just dishonest from you

What was successful after Tesla and SpaceX?

[deleted]

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#412
post #55

IMO Tesla would be better if they focused solely on making good EVs, rather than also trying to become the leader in self-driving. I get that they're trying to create a wider moat against their competitors, but if their self-driving software are found to have systematic failure modes in them as these internal docs seem to suggest, then that could very well do more harm to their reputation in the long run.

Elons point on cars being worth 5x as much with self driving shouldn’t be dismissed. If a car that costs $25,000 to manufacture all of a sudden can be driven 40-50 hours a week automatically, how much is that car now worth? So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors given teslas enormous valuation.

Not a much more than I'm already paying for it, because the technology will become ubiquitous and the cost should drop appropriately.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#413
post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elons point on cars being worth 5x as much with self driving shouldn’t be dismissed. If a car that costs $25,000 to manufacture all of a sudden can be driven 40-50 hours a week automatically, how much is that car now worth? So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors given teslas enormous valuation.

>Elons point on cars being worth 5x as much .... all of a sudden can be driven 40-50 hours a week ... Look at it this way, assume humans drive, or need to be driven/travel, X miles per year. Today, assuming a car drives Y miles per year, the market needs X/Y cars. Given your argument, with self driving, a car runs nY miles per year, the demand for car will drop to X/nY , basically 1/n of before or maybe a little more…

If cars drive themselves, you can let them out as Ubers when you don’t need to drive it. That could definitely mean less cars if they are priced aggressively. Peak is still a problem, but public transit can focus on peak rather than non peak (assuming Robo taxis are price efficient).

Even if we need 1/5 cars (and EVs do last longer, so without self driving, this will happen anyways), as long as the lost cars come from your competitors, it’s fine.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#414
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon doesn't actually believe that Tesla cars are about to quintuple in value now, any more than he did 7+ years ago when he first started saying it; that's just marketing BS. > So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors given teslas enormous valuation. Yes, and most Gamestop investors think the company is going to be the next Amazon. Buying a popular meme stock doesn't make their predictions right.

Personally I believe it, I'm not sure about the year, but someone is going to make a fully autonomous car in the next few years. If you look at just CLIP, Dino, GPT-4, given the current pace of progress, it's pretty obvious that it's going to happen.

So it happens, then people realize they can earn money with it, then tesla realizes they can sell it now for 4 times more. In the end, you're not going to earn 4 times more because Tesla or whoever makes the car will take that into account and skim off that top.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was Elon has an incredible track record of success which follows a formula of overhype, delays, and eventual achievement if not overachievement. You seem to have a more personal vendetta against him, I’m just looking at his insane success and envying hype/ management style

> My point was Elon has an incredible track record of success which follows a formula of overhype, delays, and eventual achievement if not overachievement. His biggest success is the rocket industry. Let's examine top competitors - corrupt ULA which flies rockets on 50 year old engines and does cost+ contracts, his other competitor was Russia, a corrupt kleptocracy that stopped innovating when USSR fell apart. Russia…

> Tesla had a head start on electric, but they could not take advantage of this.

The Model Y is currently the world's best-selling car. I think that counts as Tesla taking advantage.

https://www.motor1.com/news/669135/tesla-model-y-worlds-best...

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#416
post #55

IMO Tesla would be better if they focused solely on making good EVs, rather than also trying to become the leader in self-driving. I get that they're trying to create a wider moat against their competitors, but if their self-driving software are found to have systematic failure modes in them as these internal docs seem to suggest, then that could very well do more harm to their reputation in the long run.

Elons point on cars being worth 5x as much with self driving shouldn’t be dismissed. If a car that costs $25,000 to manufacture all of a sudden can be driven 40-50 hours a week automatically, how much is that car now worth? So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors given teslas enormous valuation.

Why does self driving impact this at all?

You can already lend out your car for other people to drive, and there are numerous companies that do exactly that as their entire business model.

So this is a serious question, in what way does self driving cars mean your personal car is going to be used more?

The only people for whom self-driving cars represent an actual real world monetary win are people and companies that transport people and things. So public transport, trucking companies, uber, etc - for them self driving would mean no longer having to pay for drivers.

For every other group self driving has no financial impact on the value of the car (except possibly tremendously devaluing any existing cars where a component of their value is current generation "self driving").

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#417
post #55

IMO Tesla would be better if they focused solely on making good EVs, rather than also trying to become the leader in self-driving. I get that they're trying to create a wider moat against their competitors, but if their self-driving software are found to have systematic failure modes in them as these internal docs seem to suggest, then that could very well do more harm to their reputation in the long run.

Note the article says the failure reports are about Autopilot, not FSD which is much more advanced (but still in beta, of course).

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point being they could eliminate the human drivers and take the whole revenue instead of sharing it. From ridesharing company PoV right now they are only taking 30%-50% of the revenue, and they have gaps in meeting demand due to resourcing challenges. The business model is pretty solid if self driving taxis work even if its only in urban and suburbs

> The point being they could eliminate the human drivers and take the whole revenue instead of sharing it. Why would then Tesla even sell such cars if they can just compete and outcompete Uber?

Musk has already stated that Tesla will start a ride sharing service that FSD Tesla owners can participate in. It will also supposedly be exclusive (not allowed to do ride sharing for other services using FSD).

Google self driving car division has an agreement with Uber now.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#419
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that any different from any other product from any other manufacturer, though? Tort law has a thousand year history in our culture. Is there something specific about Tesla that needs something new? I mean, what you say is sorta specious. Of course that's true, it's always true. The interesting question is "are the cars dangerous?". And the answer seems to be a pretty emphatic no, at this point. So instead ever…

> Is there something specific about Tesla that needs something new? Is this even a real question? The product acts on it's volition! Ofcourse it's different. Imagine you buy a crate of crate of C4 - well, its super dangerous, but it does not have a mind of it's own. Untill you touch it, it stays put. So long as you store it properly, it doesnt go off. If you kill someone with it, you go to jail. But with a car, it ca…

What does any of that have to do with liability concerns? Sure, if an outrageously hyperbolized murder robot decides to kill your parents you have the ability to sue its manufacturer for damages. No one contests that.

The question is whether or not the murder robots are a real thing or just a meme. And I think we all know the answer. Look, the cars are safe. Another story on the front page today noted that the Model Y is currently the best selling car on the market. If they were dangerous in any measurable way, we'd know. They aren't. They just aren't. But sure: if they do decide to kill their overlords, it's 100% on Tesla.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And is bought by people that think the company is valuable enough to give the stock said value. You can argue that those people are wrong, sure, but I don't get what point you're trying to make. He isn't taking money away from someone else or being given "underserved" rewards, when the people that are keeping the value of what he receives believes it to be of such value.

Point is that you first sign off the effing self-driving car, then you get your effing money. That is what we used to do in America, since the days of JD Rockefeller, Henry Ford...but also Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Larry Ellison. I mean I used Windows before Gates became richest man in the world and so did hundreds of millions of people. Musk got to #1 by selling go karts to a handful of rich people and promises…

> The vast majority of Americans have never even set foot in a Tesla.

Not so sure about that. Model 3s seem to rapidly replacing Civics as the Uber car of choice.

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