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Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

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Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#161

Post by justapassenger »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #141
justapassenger wrote: post #111

Most recent story of Tesla's profitability was built around Musk's manufacturing innovations, that will make Model 3 much cheaper to produce. Experts disagreed, got fired, and alien dreadnought continued. It was such a huge failure, that to this day, portion of Model 3 production is happening a tent. With forklifts, leaking roof and space-heaters. Tesla now has new profitability story - Musk's innovations in FSD, wil…

> It was such a huge failure, that to this day, portion of Model 3 production is happening a tent. With forklifts, leaking roof and space-heaters. Citation needed?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/tesla-workers-in-ga4-tent-de...

Tent was temporary, and year later - it's still there

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#162

Post by tracer4201 »

693471 wrote: post #156
BoorishBears wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so tired of this unapologetic Tesla hand holding. > No other company has the infrastructure to be able to do that. Because they don't want it. They don't want AP regressions we've already seen happen. They don't want engineers testing code out on real people's lives. You really think other companies just don't know how to send OTA updates to an ECU or other car components? I could literally put that together with…

Have you considered that OTA updates undercut the dealership network and could be seen as servicing vehicles which in many states is illegal for the manufacturer to do so they could suffer consequences, maybe getting banned from selling in that state?

Seems like those states should change their laws. There’s no law guaranteeing me a job. Why are dealers so special?

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#163

Post by BoorishBears »

snuze wrote: post #116
BoorishBears wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so tired of this unapologetic Tesla hand holding. > No other company has the infrastructure to be able to do that. Because they don't want it. They don't want AP regressions we've already seen happen. They don't want engineers testing code out on real people's lives. You really think other companies just don't know how to send OTA updates to an ECU or other car components? I could literally put that together with…

As someone in the industry (with domain knowledge), I can tell you that you are oversimplifying the problem and ignoring Tesla’s advantage and leadership in this space. Other manufacturers have to account for legacy systems/designs, it is not as trivial as you make it sound.

I even state that I'm oversimplifying the problem.

Other manufacturers do have to account for legacy systems, you don't need to be in the industry to understand the relationships manufacturers have with companies like Bosch and know they're not in full control of their destiny.

But their advantage is not a "let's ignore dumpster fire financials quarter of quarter to earn them a multi billion dollar market cap" big.

Tesla is not worth 42B dollars because manufacturers can't figure out OTA updates, and the fact other manufacturers don't have OTA updates should be a rounding error when you list advantages that warrant that market cap. It doesn't take any insider knowledge to know that, just common sense, and for far too long people have been ignoring that in preference for TSLA hype.

I got out last year during the 420 nonsense so honestly I don't know why I'm even bothering with all this, the fact anyone needs more than that to see TSLA is not worth your time is interesting. Anything from that point onward was just icing on the bear cake for me.

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#164

Post by Animats »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #125
Animats wrote: post #108

"GAAP net loss of $408M" - the number that matters. Tesla isn't doing that badly. But now that they have some production volume, they have to be evaluated as a car company, not a startup. Can they make lots of cars at a profit? They got the production quantity up by throwing people, money, and a big tent at the Fremont plant. That ran up the cost per car. Although it's better than their previous state of low producti…

"they have to be evaluated as a car company" Take a look at the rate of growth in capacity both of their cars and their batteries. I don't know what it is, but with Shanghai Giga coming online this year, Model Y next year, Pickup + Semi thereafter, the growth in capacity and the capital requirements to install it, is not matched by any other car company, possibly in the history of car companies (Musk's posit, to be f…

Building production plants is folded into GAAP numbers. Those are real assets with real depreciation.

Actual production at Tesla's battery "gigafactory" is only around 23GWh/yr.[1] That puts them well behind BYD and Contemporary Amperex Technology. About five other companies have battery factories in the 10-100GWh/yr range under construction or operating.

[1] https://electrek.co/2019/04/14/tesla-gigafactory-1-battery-c...

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#165

Post by icanhackit »

BoorishBears wrote: post #160
icanhackit wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running the latest neural net build in a shadow mode pitted against the real world driver and relaying back telemetry where the shadow NN took an opposing action is a little more sophisticated than pushing out an ECU update. I think you're being a little uncharitable or simply don't understand what Tesla are doing.

I say you're intentionally confusing two points. >Being able to test your code out in the real world and dark launch a feature gives Tesla a ridiculous advantage. Is the comment I'm responding to. You're intentionally dragging the rest of it into the conversation to make my point seem absurd. Par for the course for Tesla defenders.

>> Being able to test your code out in the real world and dark launch a feature gives Tesla a ridiculous advantage.

> Is the comment I'm responding to.

And that dark launching includes sending the latest neural net builds to the fleet to safely shadow test the changes, collecting millions of hours of real-world telemetry and rapidly iterating without end users even needing to pick their nose. You either intentionally or through ignorance reduced OP's statement to being an OTA ECU update that you "could literally put that together with scraps in my garage".

But feel free to keep shifting the goal posts.

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#166

Post by justapassenger »

nisten wrote: post #113

In 2017 Intel acquired mobileye( the makers of the autopilot radar in the early Teslas), for 15.3 Billion. That begs the question, if Tesla were to sell their autopilot system tomorrow, , given it's safety record, amount of training data, and new FPGA processor IP, how much would it be worth? 15, 20, 40? This is why I find their delivery numbers completely and utterly irrelevant to company value. This is a just a tec…

It's not really easy to compare value of Tesla autopilot IP with mobileye.

Tesla AP is a highly integrated, custom product, that works only with Tesla cars.

Mobileye was (and still is) general automotive supplier, with most of car companies as their clients. Intel didn't buy just tech - it bought all also the integrations and market share.

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#167

Post by BoorishBears »

icanhackit wrote: post #165
BoorishBears wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say you're intentionally confusing two points. >Being able to test your code out in the real world and dark launch a feature gives Tesla a ridiculous advantage. Is the comment I'm responding to. You're intentionally dragging the rest of it into the conversation to make my point seem absurd. Par for the course for Tesla defenders.

>> Being able to test your code out in the real world and dark launch a feature gives Tesla a ridiculous advantage. > Is the comment I'm responding to. And that dark launching includes sending the latest neural net builds to the fleet to safely shadow test the changes, collecting millions of hours of real-world telemetry and rapidly iterating without end users even needing to pick their nose. You either intentionally…

I hate it when people say "keep shifting goal posts" in the most random contexts to sound pithy.

I said no OEM wants their engineers to have a capability and you're fixating on the uses of the capability.

My comment is saying it doesn't matter if they wanted to use it for something as trivial as ECU updates, They. Do. Not. Want. It.

If you want a case study in why, AP regressions are a fine one.

They don't want the liability when an updates goes wrong and kills people. They do not see people's lives as prod vs dev. They do not want to hotfix safety critical systems. They want to get it right the first time, and that's why they're conservative and by god, they get it right a lot more than they get it wrong.

Because no matter how much spin TSLA fanboys put on these things, they are liabilities as much as, if not more, than they are strengths, especially combined with the flippant approach to valuing human life the company that called Adaptive Cruise Control + Lane Centering "Autopilot"

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#168

Post by icanhackit »

BoorishBears wrote: post #167
icanhackit wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Being able to test your code out in the real world and dark launch a feature gives Tesla a ridiculous advantage. > Is the comment I'm responding to. And that dark launching includes sending the latest neural net builds to the fleet to safely shadow test the changes, collecting millions of hours of real-world telemetry and rapidly iterating without end users even needing to pick their nose. You either intentionally…

I hate it when people say "keep shifting goal posts" in the most random contexts to sound pithy. I said no OEM wants their engineers to have a capability and you're fixating on the uses of the capability. My comment is saying it doesn't matter if they wanted to use it for something as trivial as ECU updates, They. Do. Not. Want. It. If you want a case study in why, AP regressions are a fine one. They don't want the l…

> My comment is saying it doesn't matter if they wanted to use it for something as trivial as ECU updates

What I'm saying is that you've completely missed the OP's point: The advantage Tesla has in the autopilot space is that they are able to have hundreds of thousands of real-world test units for their autopilot systems by running the neural net in parallel with the driver inputs (i.e. shadow mode) versus companies that at best have a few hundred test units thus limited material to improve/iterate on their deep learning models.

A metaphor for the situation is Apple playing catchup in the AI and voice recognition space to Google because Google had years of material and huge sums of it to build their deep learning models while Apple had comparatively little. The underlying technologies used by either company might be very similar, but you can't throw hardware at the problem to play catch up -- you need that real-world input/learning material for the deep-learning model to be robust.

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#169

Post by mettamage »

So can someone explain to my why the Tesla stock made a nose dive to about $170 and is now almost back to where it was 3 months ago?

I don't understand how such huge volatility could happen assuming that the efficient market hypothesis is real.

Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter

#170

Post by tssva »

tracer4201 wrote: post #162
693471 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that OTA updates undercut the dealership network and could be seen as servicing vehicles which in many states is illegal for the manufacturer to do so they could suffer consequences, maybe getting banned from selling in that state?

Seems like those states should change their laws. There’s no law guaranteeing me a job. Why are dealers so special?

Car dealers produce significant local employment and generate significant state and local tax dollars. What is the advantage to the state of favoring an out of state company over them?
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