7 ms·

It seems to be going pretty well so far. Despite some serious missteps in body design, they've managed to build one of the world's safest passenger sedans. If t

by jsight 7y ago

It seems to be going pretty well so far. Despite some serious missteps in body design, they've managed to build one of the world's safest passenger sedans. If they were good at their jobs too, it would have been even better. They've also managed to build out an entire supply chain for building more electric cars yearly than any of their competitors. That doesn't appear to be a feat that will be matched for at least a couple of years, even if Tesla were relatively stagnant. Instead Tesla is aiming to continue 50+% average annual growth for another couple of years at least. Continue? Yep, their growth story is faster than that of any American car company in the world's history. I'm not sure if there are any worldwide that would compare, but it seems doubtful. Of course, there are plenty of things wrong too, just as there were when the automotive industry was born and the Durant types ran the industry. But what they've done is absolutely remarkable.

wlesieutre 7y ago
They've proven they can make a car, the part I'm most skeptical is Elon Musk's continued boasting on how far ahead they are with self driving.
- jsight 7y ago
  I agree with that. To me, the most worrying thing about Tesla this year has been their overemphasis on full self driving features. They do not appear to be close and I do not like the way they are using puffery around that to sell vehicles.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Self driving is to Tesla as StarLink is to SpaceX. Go where the margins are fat. The market for cars (which sit idle 90% of the time) is much smaller than that for total passenger transportation miles. The market for launches is much smaller than satellite broadband services.
    - imtringued 7y ago
      Cars sitting idle 90% of the time is a feature. If my car was utilized 100% of the time then it would wear out within a single year.
      - londons_explore 7y ago
        Which would be great. Putting capital into something that can only be extracted years later is a poor investment. The sooner you can get the benefits of an investment, the sooner you can invest in the next thing, and the less return the investment has to give to be competitive.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Exactly. Southwest Airlines doesn’t think “these darn planes are in the air too much!”. Every minute you’re not flying is lost revenue on a depreciating asset. Keep the metal moving. Unproductive assets is no different than lighting money on fire.
- Phlarp 7y ago
  I agree in a big way here, I have no particular speciality with autonomous driving but I have seen enough media coverage of Musk both snubbing Lidar based systems and then Tesla auto-pilot hitting overhanging rear loads, which a lidar would seem to help with if not completely fix. His aversion to Lidar seems to have more to do with the cost implications on a vehicle that doesn't have a lot of room to raise the price or cut into the margins.
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    Even parallax based systems are good at avoiding stationary objects, and are inexpensive since they use two overlapping visible light cameras (see EyeSight for one example). Essentially they work like the human eye to determine depth/distance. Tesla put two visible light cameras in their cars, but didn't configure them to parallax and instead rely on radar that has noise problems and ultrasound which only works at close range. It was a mistake that has had consequences.
    - cr0sh 7y ago
      > Even parallax based systems are good at avoiding stationary objects, and are inexpensive since they use two overlapping visible light cameras (see EyeSight for one example). Essentially they work like the human eye to determine depth/distance. While I agree that it would be better to be using a multi-camera system for depth estimation, and there's no reason not to (because cameras are cheap and easy to build into bodywork of a vehicle), it shouldn't necessarily be needed. Otherwise, you'd have one-eye sighted people, who drive, running into the same obstacles, right? But they don't - so how do they do it? Probably motion cues, depth-from-motion, etc - something the brain does. From a cost-savings perspective, eliminating that extra camera will likely be looked at being done at some point, because over millions of cars manufactured, not installing that extra camera and wiring will save a ton of money and increase profitability. But Tesla isn't quite there yet, and probably shouldn't eliminate it... Furthermore, I'm not sure even LIDAR should be eliminated; the more sensors and sensor types, the better, ultimately. The problem is finding a LIDAR unit that has enough resolution and can be fitted to a vehicle (and doesn't look like a giant spinning top). Flash LIDAR units will probably be the solution, but they are still fairly expensive, and I don't know if they have the resolution needed yet, either.
- jm4 7y ago
  I believe they are far ahead. Not quite ready to believe city self driving will be ready this year. I drive a Tesla and recently rode in a self driving Lyft. They are similar. The human driver frequently disengaged self driving and drove manually for probably half the trip. This was with cameras, lidar, pre-mapped roads, etc. I can drive mine the same way (on and off) in the city and it’s more reliable.
- deepsun 7y ago
  What do you mean? They are going to drive autonomously coast-to-coast by 2018! Almost there! (no that's not a typo)
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    The first time he rolled that claim out was back in 2016 when they were going to do it in 2017. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/driverless-tesla-will-travel-l-nyc-2017-says-musk-n670206 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/driverless-tesla-will...
    - nick_kline 7y ago
      You guys missed that time travel is part of this delivery plan.
- conductr 7y ago
  I agree. But also wonder why it’s taken google so long to do anything commercialized at scale in this space. Assuming Elon is collecting data from every mile one of his cars drives, it’s not too hard to believe that he could be making significant progress and have the means to commercialize it
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    Because they're more honest about the "move fast and drive into a concrete barrier" problems? IMO's autopilot'ss scariest incident is where it drove into a barrier between the exit lane and the highway. https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-malfunction-caused-crash-that-killed-ap-1834453661 https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-malfunction-caused-crash... Other drivers were able to reproduce the same behavior, in which the car appears to think that the space between the exit and the highway is a traffic lane that it should follow. This will dump you straight into a wall at highway speeds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVJSjeHDvfY&feature=youtu.be&t=21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVJSjeHDvfY&feature=youtu.be... Tesla fixed it. Then six months later the same behavior is back: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b36x27/its_back_after_6_months_of_working_fine_2019515/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b36x27/its_bac... How do you trust a system like this when any software update could turn the car suicidal with you in it? Yeah, it's also incidents where it saved drivers from a collision with faster than human reflexes, which is great. But you still need hands on the wheel and constant attentiveness or it might kill you in a situation that would be obvious to a human driver. The full self driving dream is further off than Musk will admit.
cptskippy 7y ago
> they've managed to build one of the world's safest passenger sedans. Weren't the 3, X, and S ranked 1, 2, and 3 in the United States? I can only find a 2013 Model S ranking in the European site.
henryfjordan 7y ago
They've also killed 3+ people who were using autopilot.
- nick_kline 7y ago
  Yes, those are terrible losses. Uber killed that woman crossing the road at night in Phoenix. I'm sure Tesla has way more miles driven on auto than Uber, yet these accidents keep happening.
  - danso 7y ago
    Tesla hasn’t done any public self-driving besides the several hundred miles for the 2016 demo.
- Liquix 7y ago
  Toyota, Ford, Volkswagen, and every other auto manufacturer have all "killed" many more than three people by way of shortcomings/bugs/flaws. Medical devices, manufacturing equipment, and even space shuttles have "killed" people. It's tragic and people are writing better code every year, but mistakes still happen. We are hyper-aware of Tesla's because they are in the limelight right now.
  - henryfjordan 7y ago
    And Ford was vilified for the Pinto. Volkswagen executives are going to jail for the emissions scandal. None of these actions are acceptable. We are hyper-aware of Tesla because the CEO speaks out boisterously and (in my opinion intentionally) misleads people about autopilot's capabilities. Tesla deserves their place on the list of bad actors along with the rest.
- natch 7y ago
  Using it very incorrectly. With heavy consequences yes.
reitzensteinm 7y ago
Did you actually check the growth numbers? If so, how are you defining it? Because Ford was producing a million cars per year when it was 17 years old.
- jsight 7y ago
  Excellent point, and you are right that I did not realize Ford's early growth curve was that steep. Oops. I also did not realize how much Ford dominated the automotive sector in those early years or how widely variable sales were in that era. The numbers here were really interesting to look at in detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Fig... So maybe I should move my statement around a bit. Ford is the fastest growing automaker over its first 20 years of existence (clearly). But Ford also built cars in its first year. Who was the fastest from the first car off the line to the 11 year mark (Tesla's current state)? Hmm, its really close, with both at ~300k for the trailing twelve months, if I'm not mistaken (Ford in 1914). And the following year, Ford did about 500k, which is remarkably close to Tesla's goal for the next year. I've been thinking for a while now that history was repeating itself in more ways than people realize and this kind of confirms it for me. This is all really interesting stuff. Thanks for pointing out my error! :)

by jsight 7y ago

wlesieutre 7y ago

They've proven they can make a car, the part I'm most skeptical is Elon Musk's continued boasting on how far ahead they are with self driving.

jsight 7y ago
I agree with that. To me, the most worrying thing about Tesla this year has been their overemphasis on full self driving features. They do not appear to be close and I do not like the way they are using puffery around that to sell vehicles.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Self driving is to Tesla as StarLink is to SpaceX. Go where the margins are fat. The market for cars (which sit idle 90% of the time) is much smaller than that for total passenger transportation miles. The market for launches is much smaller than satellite broadband services.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    Cars sitting idle 90% of the time is a feature. If my car was utilized 100% of the time then it would wear out within a single year.
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      Which would be great. Putting capital into something that can only be extracted years later is a poor investment. The sooner you can get the benefits of an investment, the sooner you can invest in the next thing, and the less return the investment has to give to be competitive.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Exactly. Southwest Airlines doesn’t think “these darn planes are in the air too much!”. Every minute you’re not flying is lost revenue on a depreciating asset. Keep the metal moving. Unproductive assets is no different than lighting money on fire.
Phlarp 7y ago
I agree in a big way here, I have no particular speciality with autonomous driving but I have seen enough media coverage of Musk both snubbing Lidar based systems and then Tesla auto-pilot hitting overhanging rear loads, which a lidar would seem to help with if not completely fix. His aversion to Lidar seems to have more to do with the cost implications on a vehicle that doesn't have a lot of room to raise the price or cut into the margins.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Even parallax based systems are good at avoiding stationary objects, and are inexpensive since they use two overlapping visible light cameras (see EyeSight for one example). Essentially they work like the human eye to determine depth/distance. Tesla put two visible light cameras in their cars, but didn't configure them to parallax and instead rely on radar that has noise problems and ultrasound which only works at close range. It was a mistake that has had consequences.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    > Even parallax based systems are good at avoiding stationary objects, and are inexpensive since they use two overlapping visible light cameras (see EyeSight for one example). Essentially they work like the human eye to determine depth/distance. While I agree that it would be better to be using a multi-camera system for depth estimation, and there's no reason not to (because cameras are cheap and easy to build into bodywork of a vehicle), it shouldn't necessarily be needed. Otherwise, you'd have one-eye sighted people, who drive, running into the same obstacles, right? But they don't - so how do they do it? Probably motion cues, depth-from-motion, etc - something the brain does. From a cost-savings perspective, eliminating that extra camera will likely be looked at being done at some point, because over millions of cars manufactured, not installing that extra camera and wiring will save a ton of money and increase profitability. But Tesla isn't quite there yet, and probably shouldn't eliminate it... Furthermore, I'm not sure even LIDAR should be eliminated; the more sensors and sensor types, the better, ultimately. The problem is finding a LIDAR unit that has enough resolution and can be fitted to a vehicle (and doesn't look like a giant spinning top). Flash LIDAR units will probably be the solution, but they are still fairly expensive, and I don't know if they have the resolution needed yet, either.
jm4 7y ago
I believe they are far ahead. Not quite ready to believe city self driving will be ready this year. I drive a Tesla and recently rode in a self driving Lyft. They are similar. The human driver frequently disengaged self driving and drove manually for probably half the trip. This was with cameras, lidar, pre-mapped roads, etc. I can drive mine the same way (on and off) in the city and it’s more reliable.
deepsun 7y ago
What do you mean? They are going to drive autonomously coast-to-coast by 2018! Almost there! (no that's not a typo)
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  The first time he rolled that claim out was back in 2016 when they were going to do it in 2017. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/driverless-tesla-will-travel-l-nyc-2017-says-musk-n670206 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/driverless-tesla-will...
  - nick_kline 7y ago
    You guys missed that time travel is part of this delivery plan.
conductr 7y ago
I agree. But also wonder why it’s taken google so long to do anything commercialized at scale in this space. Assuming Elon is collecting data from every mile one of his cars drives, it’s not too hard to believe that he could be making significant progress and have the means to commercialize it
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  Because they're more honest about the "move fast and drive into a concrete barrier" problems? IMO's autopilot'ss scariest incident is where it drove into a barrier between the exit lane and the highway. https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-malfunction-caused-crash-that-killed-ap-1834453661 https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-malfunction-caused-crash... Other drivers were able to reproduce the same behavior, in which the car appears to think that the space between the exit and the highway is a traffic lane that it should follow. This will dump you straight into a wall at highway speeds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVJSjeHDvfY&feature=youtu.be&t=21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVJSjeHDvfY&feature=youtu.be... Tesla fixed it. Then six months later the same behavior is back: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b36x27/its_back_after_6_months_of_working_fine_2019515/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b36x27/its_bac... How do you trust a system like this when any software update could turn the car suicidal with you in it? Yeah, it's also incidents where it saved drivers from a collision with faster than human reflexes, which is great. But you still need hands on the wheel and constant attentiveness or it might kill you in a situation that would be obvious to a human driver. The full self driving dream is further off than Musk will admit.

cptskippy 7y ago

> they've managed to build one of the world's safest passenger sedans. Weren't the 3, X, and S ranked 1, 2, and 3 in the United States? I can only find a 2013 Model S ranking in the European site.

henryfjordan 7y ago

They've also killed 3+ people who were using autopilot.

nick_kline 7y ago
Yes, those are terrible losses. Uber killed that woman crossing the road at night in Phoenix. I'm sure Tesla has way more miles driven on auto than Uber, yet these accidents keep happening.
- danso 7y ago
  Tesla hasn’t done any public self-driving besides the several hundred miles for the 2016 demo.
Liquix 7y ago
Toyota, Ford, Volkswagen, and every other auto manufacturer have all "killed" many more than three people by way of shortcomings/bugs/flaws. Medical devices, manufacturing equipment, and even space shuttles have "killed" people. It's tragic and people are writing better code every year, but mistakes still happen. We are hyper-aware of Tesla's because they are in the limelight right now.
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  And Ford was vilified for the Pinto. Volkswagen executives are going to jail for the emissions scandal. None of these actions are acceptable. We are hyper-aware of Tesla because the CEO speaks out boisterously and (in my opinion intentionally) misleads people about autopilot's capabilities. Tesla deserves their place on the list of bad actors along with the rest.
natch 7y ago
Using it very incorrectly. With heavy consequences yes.

reitzensteinm 7y ago

Did you actually check the growth numbers? If so, how are you defining it? Because Ford was producing a million cars per year when it was 17 years old.

jsight 7y ago
Excellent point, and you are right that I did not realize Ford's early growth curve was that steep. Oops. I also did not realize how much Ford dominated the automotive sector in those early years or how widely variable sales were in that era. The numbers here were really interesting to look at in detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Fig... So maybe I should move my statement around a bit. Ford is the fastest growing automaker over its first 20 years of existence (clearly). But Ford also built cars in its first year. Who was the fastest from the first car off the line to the 11 year mark (Tesla's current state)? Hmm, its really close, with both at ~300k for the trailing twelve months, if I'm not mistaken (Ford in 1914). And the following year, Ford did about 500k, which is remarkably close to Tesla's goal for the next year. I've been thinking for a while now that history was repeating itself in more ways than people realize and this kind of confirms it for me. This is all really interesting stuff. Thanks for pointing out my error! :)