They jumped the shark with the Model 3, and I really wanted to like it.
It's still the most popular car in it's class by a mile, how is that "jumping the shark"?
Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
21–30 of 189 posts
Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a known feature unveiled, I believe, on Tesla's autonomy day. It just means they're able to test Autopilot on cars even if they aren't running autopilot.
neat. I would say im optomistic on this actual self driving stuff. But coming from almost no machine learning knowledge, doesn't this make tesla way ahead of google/waymo and others? Because they can simply check when they failed and tweak. I'm just curious if it does make them way ahead, and if so how much more ahead? Is this driving a car vs horse wagon levels?
Which company is in the lead is a very contentious topic it seems. This one specific feature doesn't seem to push it one way or the other. But IMO Tesla has the best approach and has a huge lead on the data collection pipeline. No other self driving company has even close to as many cars to test on / gather data from.
Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#23anyone care to talk about this part "This feature is currently operating in “shadow mode” in the fleet, which compares our software algorithm to real-world driver behavior across tens of millions of instances around the world." that seems very juicy? edit: it seems people put a disclaimer on their ownership of tesla stock on hn about tesla threads. i dont own any.
> We are making progress towards stopping at stop signs and traffic lights. This feature is currently operating in “shadow mode” in the fleet, which compares our software algorithm to real-world driver behavior across tens of millions of instances around the world.
It's cool that they can collect that data and no doubt will help refine the feature, but otherwise marketing speak. Says nothing about how accurate their algorithm is or how long it may take. There's nothing stopping them from rolling out an algo for anything and running it in "shadow mode".
Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#24Looks like the cash situation is finally under control. They generated over $600 million in FCF in Q2. Compare this to only $200 million by Ford over the same period, also announced today: https://s22.q4cdn.com/857684434/files/doc_financials/2019/q2...
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Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#25Tesla's stock has massively under-performed over the past 5 years (will be up 8% over that period if the after hours price action holds). The opportunity cost of owning it has been huge while the rest of the market ripped up.
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Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a known feature unveiled, I believe, on Tesla's autonomy day. It just means they're able to test Autopilot on cars even if they aren't running autopilot.
neat. I would say im optomistic on this actual self driving stuff. But coming from almost no machine learning knowledge, doesn't this make tesla way ahead of google/waymo and others? Because they can simply check when they failed and tweak. I'm just curious if it does make them way ahead, and if so how much more ahead? Is this driving a car vs horse wagon levels?
I think the real answer is nobody knows.
It's obviously got some benefits, and I think most people in ML would agree that real world data from the "average person" (as in "not a Dev or paid to do this") is worlds better than simulations.
Still, "ahead" and "behind" isn't really a thing before you reach the finish line here. Many think Tesla will never reach full self driving or won't reach it without additional sensors, others think it's possible but decades or more away, still others think it's right around the corner and can be done with what is on a Tesla right now.
Until someone reaches that finish line, we won't have anything to compare it to, so we don't have any idea how close or far anyone really is.
Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a known feature unveiled, I believe, on Tesla's autonomy day. It just means they're able to test Autopilot on cars even if they aren't running autopilot.
Disclaimer: I own no financial stake in Tesla, and while I love the goal of converting the world towards electric vehicles as whole I am not a fan of Tesla or Elon Musk. There are people much more informed than myself that believe Shadow Mode isn't real, and that Tesla is outright lying about its existence. https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1096322810694287361
That twitter thread (which is great, btw, everyone interested in this stuff should be following @greentheonly) doesn't remotely substantiate "Shadow Mode isn't real, and that Tesla is outright lying".
I don't know the extent of public statements about it, but comparing collected data like the stuff detailed there to driver behavior is certainly feasible and almost certainly being done. It's also likely true that the marketing department had their way with the announcement and made it sound more like an on-vehicle entity, but.. meh.
I just don't see how you got from that (again, really great) analysis to such an outraged conclusion.
Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#28Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#29Tesla's stock has massively under-performed over the past 5 years (will be up 8% over that period if the after hours price action holds). The opportunity cost of owning it has been huge while the rest of the market ripped up.
Up 8%? It's down 10%+, what made you think it would go up? Rest of the market ripped up? The S&P is up 20% this year while Tesla has gone down 20%.
Edit: >The opportunity cost of owning it has been huge while the rest of the market ripped up
The S&P is up over 50% in five years. TSLA could go up 20% tomorrow (and ignore today's after hours change) and the S&P would still be outperforming TSLA.
Re: Tesla Q2 2019 Letter
#30Looks like the cash situation is finally under control. They generated over $600 million in FCF in Q2. Compare this to only $200 million by Ford over the same period, also announced today: https://s22.q4cdn.com/857684434/files/doc_financials/2019/q2...
They sold a lot of existing inventory (as in, cars sitting on lots) this quarter. That generates cash.
Loss is more than $400M on record sales.
Tesla has a demand problem and is discounting cars in order to maintain the growth story.