Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#711

Post by valine » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 7:28 PM UTC

serioussecurity wrote: post #693

valine wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying that Musk has solved fsd or that he will in the near future, but if you asked anyone with experience building cell phones in 2006 if the iPhone was possible they would have said absolutely not. Technological progress is inherently unpredictable even for experts. Musk has some really good people working for him and their datasets get bigger every day, I wouldn't rule Tesla out just yet.

Their datasets aren't useful for the problems that make driving hard. Musk is making claims which are paper thin false. If he weren't making these kinds of claims I'd take him more seriously. I promise you that the reasons this is ludicrous are extremely solid. Edit: fwiw I've actually taken a look at a number of waymos internal systems, and sat down with people who worked on autopilot.

If Tesla doesn’t have the right training data then no one does. Tesla has both simulations and vast amounts of real world data from cars all over the world. Extracting depth maps from 2d images is a solved problem, which negates the need for Lidar. Best I can tell Tesla is the closest out of everyone to solving self driving. I don’t think they’ll solve it by next year, but If I had to guess I’d say 2.5 to 3 years from now Tesla will have relatively safe self driving cars.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#712

Post by asdff » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #707

WorldMaker wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, at this point inside US cities the majority of pumps have been moving to the model of grocery stores with pumps attached, and that model still works with chargers augmenting and then replacing pumps, because grocery stores generally are useful places to charge while you shop. (Just as malls seem to be good places to add chargers, if you expect and/or want people to linger/browse while they charge.) Convenience…

It won't work quite as well just because it takes so much longer to charge an EV than it does to gas up a regular car. So the limited lots of existing stations will have a much lower turnover rate than they do now. Also most places around me are very much just the traditional convenience store you can only get a very limited selection of stuff (like a smattering for fruit and milk at best with maybe some cereals or s…

It's eventually going to be something that happens when the car is parked, rather than a specific stop for charging/gassing up. I've already seen parking garages and street side meters equipped with EV chargers (although rarely an EV parked there). Ideally all batteries would be standardized, so you'd just pull up to a place and swap like you would a propane tank, but open standards aren't as inticing to investors as trying to dominate market share with proprietary tech and licensing it to everyone. Probably going to take a law standardizing swappable EV batteries to nip that bad behavior in the bud.

The valet game should get interesting. Pay extra to guarantee charging would be a quick and easy way to gouge a few more pennies.

As far as gas stations goes, I don't see a route where most of them aren't folding. Franchises don't have the resources to retool like a big corporation that can light money on fire every month and still increase in value.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#713

Post by jakobegger » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #706

jakobegger wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a German, but we Austrians love wagons and hatchbacks. Sedans are something that only old people drive here. A car with a tiny trunk like the Model 3 is no good for driving on vacation with the kids.

So, Model Y?

No. Model Y looks more like a crossover or a fastback. These types of cars are getting slightly more common here (for example BMW X4, Mercedes GLE, ...) but they are not mass market cars. These are fancy cars for people with too much money.

The sloping roof means there's not a lot of space in the back. The Model Y might be an improvement compared to Model 3, but it looks like it is still way too long for the amount of space it offers.

Lots of people drive station wagons around here. Cars like the VW Golf Variant, Passat Variant, Audi A4 Avant, BMW 5 series Touring...

People with kids buy family cars like the Citroen C4 Picasso, Opel Zafira, Touran. The Model Y doesn't look like it can compete with those on space.

Smaller SUVs (Tiguan, Peugeot 3008, Nissan Qashqai) are also very popular here, but Model Y doesn't really look like an SUV either.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#714

Post by asdff » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #600

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla doesn't make good cars. They make unremarkable cars with good drive-trains. It's like the EV version of FCA's ~700hp offerings. Sure the interior and build quality are kind of crap for what you pay but with 700 ponies on tap you don't care.

This is a joke right? They make some of the most highly regarded cars of all time. Recently buying one and showing it off almost every single person (30~) was blown away at how much better it was then their car and wanted one in the future. Tesla has many problems but making bad cars isn't one of them, these things are awesome.

The interiors aren't all that nice though, certainly not for how much change they are asking for. Having everything behind a hulking iPad sucks when you are driving a car. Give me dials, give me buttons that click in, give me levers, give me something where I can tell where the setting is with my fingers without having to take my eyes off the road. I'm really surprised car manufacturers have gotten away with cramming so many features into touch screen interfaces that give you zero feedback if you aren't staring at the screen, it really should be illegal as its absurdly dangerous.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#715

Post by sliken » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:03 PM UTC

dan678 wrote: post #689

sliken wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seen the Cornell paper "Pseudo-LiDAR from Visual Depth Estimation: Bridging the Gap in 3D Object Detection for Autonomous Driving" or the more consumer friendly "Elon Musk Was Right: Cheap Cameras Could Replace Lidar on Self-Driving Cars, Researchers Find"? Looks like a pair of cheap cameras with good stereo separation (distance between the cameras) provides very similar data to Lidar. All without the giant domes on…

Not in scenes with poor lighting, not in rain, not in fog, not in scenes with poor surface variation, and not at the ranges needed for safe on highway driving.

Sure. Problem is cameras are more similar to humans. So a camera based system will drive more like humans, and be less dangerous. If you use a Lidar based system and conditions are great for lidar, but terrible for cameras it's going to be very dangerous to mix autonomous lidar cars with human driven cars.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#716

Post by dagw » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #709

dagw wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this a serious question? Of course it is. Saving a lot of money on a car means you can spend a lot of money on other things you enjoy. So why would you pay a lot of money to drive a Tesla instead of a Hyundai? Because the Tesla looks better? Drives better? Has better safety features? Is more reliable? Has a higher status value? I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to buy a Tesla instead of Hyundai and had…

>I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to buy a Tesla instead of Hyundai and had they cost the same then sure I'd buy a Tesla as well. The MSRP on the base-model Kona is $36,950, which is a bit less than the $39,500 Tesla SR+, but not dramatically. The next level of trim above the base model Kona is $41,500, and doesn't seem to add any significant features (LED headlamps, etc., which Tesla already has.) The h…

Fair enough. I was looking at the prices here in Sweden and here the base model Kona is ~$18k cheaper than the base model SR+.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#717

Post by gonehome » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:46 PM UTC

navigatesol wrote: post #710

gonehome wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify they’ve said each step was impossible and that Musk was basically a fraud or a liar and each step has been executed so far. I place the people predicting failure with those predicting a stock market crash - given a long enough time horizon you’ll eventually be right, but otherwise it seems to have mostly been nonsense so far. I suspect people outside Tesla are either just bad at predicting their ability to…

> To clarify they’ve said each step was impossible and that Musk was basically a fraud or a liar and each step has been executed so far. This is a nonsense narrative that some people tell themselves to justify hanging on for dear life. Sure, there was some skepticism about EVs, but it was mainly around whether there was demand and whether they could be built profitably at that level of demand. Who Killed The Electric…

I'm not sure what to tell you, basically nothing you've said is true.

There wasn't 'some skepticism' about EVs, very few took them seriously back then.

During the roadster the main narrative was it couldn't be done and if they could do it nobody would buy them.

For the Model S there were constant reports of Tesla not having the money to build them etc. the same thing was said repeatedly about the Model 3 (they would never be able to manufacture enough, they didn't have the money, they were going to fail).

Tesla pulled EVs from the future to now in spite of it being a very hard market to enter with massive up front costs. Along the way they also built out a charging network and made huge improvements in car software and getting rid of the dealership model.

The next shift is autonomous driving and the pivot to it is because any car without the tech when it happens will have negative value.

I'm not claiming that there's nothing to fear because they haven't gone bankrupt yet, they could still fail - but you're not arguing in good faith and people have been saying the same thing for years even though Tesla has proved them wrong at each previous stage.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#718

Post by threeseed » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #668

threeseed wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That paper says nothing of the sort. Did you even read it ? The numbers actually show pseudo-LiDAR being worse in general and significantly worse at longer distances.

I read it. Did you? "it is plausible that image-based 3D object detection for autonomous vehicle will become a reality in the near future."

You do know that we have 3D object detection today. In fact we've had it for a few years now.

The issue isn't whether it works or not. The issue is whether you need LiDAR in the mix as well. And your paper says unequivocally that the answer is "yes we do".

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#719

Post by Noos » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #633

raiyu wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shift want just digital cameras it was also the iPhone that made the digital camera obsolete. With digital cameras they were losing film revenue which was larger than camera sales. Car companies don't own gas stations so they will switch faster and easier than Kodak. There will be some struggles internally but not as much I suspect. Plus modern EVs have demonstrated more performance then ice so it's really just a…

This made me think of the future of gas stations. Will they just conver to charging stations, and charge customers to use them?

I don't think it will be possible. A gas station can refuel 20 cars per hour; there's no way you can do that with a charging station.

Probably they would die out, and hotels would do long distance charging, since you need to charge it when you sleep. People would just not be able to do medium or small distance charging at all except at their home.

Re: Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag

#720

Post by _ph_ » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

Roark66 wrote: post #543

_ph_ wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, you basically cannot buy a Hyundai. The production is far below Model 3 levels. Here in Germany, you are looking at 12 months wait time due to demand far exceeding supply. Also, the Model 3 is a very attractive offering. It is the faster car, aims at the typical BMW audience, and most of all, has the supercharger network available.

>Also, the Model 3 is a very attractive offering. It is the faster car, aims at the typical BMW audience Until you find out your range goes down significantly when you drive fast... I was seriously considering tesla model 3 as most of my trips are below 40 miles, but occasionally I do need to drive to another city 200 miles away, and when I do I want to be able to drive at the same speed I normally use at the motorwa…

I don't know where you got your numbers from, but according to next move it has about 200 miles of range at 150km/h, going ever so slightly slower (and you probably will have sections with a speed limit anyway in between) would let you comfortably make the trip: https://nextmove.de/tesla-model-3-reichweitentest-bei-150-vs...