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>I’m upset about this because it’s (IMO) more of a marketing thing (and maybe a way to have some leverage over 3rd party repair shops) and not really a technica

>I’m upset about this because it’s (IMO) more of a marketing thing (and maybe a way to have some leverage over 3rd party repair shops) and not really a technical improvement. The number of "tech people" that think Tesla has some chip building advantage over the likes of companies like NVIDIA is astonishing. Tesla's marketing compares their chip to older NVIDIA boards. NVIDIA has better tech available off-the-shelf: https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-fires-back-at-tesla-claiming-worlds-best-self-driving-car-chip-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-fires-back-at-tesla-c...

drcross 7y ago
Perhaps that's the case but Nvidia can't compete in thermal efficiency.
SEJeff 7y ago
Where you're defining better as faster, however, it uses enormously more energy, which impacts overall driving range. It doesn't need to be faster past a certain point. They've already got enough bandwidth to run the entire set of self driving neural networks in duplicate at production speed on the current FSD hardware version 3 computer. There is a point of diminishing returns wrt speed and I think we're quickly approaching if not already surpassing it. Now it is down to efficiency, which the Nvidia solution gets utterly spanked by Tesla's computer on. Ever ran CUDA simulations? GPUs always use enormous amounts of power to do anything, but they're incredible at floating point math.
- usrusr 7y ago
  It that just enormously more energy if it was running in a portable device or is that actually enormously more energy when running off half a metric ton of traction battery? Nvidia has plenty of experience in scaling their chips down to a wide range of performance/energy tradeoffs.
  - SEJeff 7y ago
    And nvidia’s faster neural network solution they say is faster than Tesla’s Chip still uses loads more power than Tesla’s chip does.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  Does Tesla really care that much about efficiency? Sentry mode chews through about 1 mile of range for every single hour it is active. My doorbell camera takes significantly less power to do motion detection than my Model 3 does.
  - SEJeff 7y ago
    Does your doorbell camera have one or eight cameras? The Model 3 has eight cameras. You’re comparing apples to orangutans.
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      You're fanboying for Tesla. The car is pulling as much juice as a gaming rig. The doorbell uses like three orders of magnitude less power. And what do I get for all that power it's consuming? It routinely misses cars and people literally inches away. Sometimes it records, sometimes it doesn't. And lately my car has decided 90% of the time not to turn on the dashcam, though sentry mode activates pretty reliably. It's half-assed. Tesla needs fans to hold them accountable instead of white-knighting for them.
      - SEJeff 7y ago
        You sidestepped my questions. Does your doorbell have one or eight cameras? Even if tesla did it as efficiently as your camera, it would be, at a minimum, eight times more energy. If they do anything fancy with a neural network (which they almost certainly do), they it might be another 2x the power. Then you have 10x the power which is one order of magnitude. Quit making false comparisons to your crappy doorbell. It is very different and they're designed for very different things. They don't work the same.
        Dylan16807 7y ago
        > You sidestepped my questions. No they didn't. First off it doesn't need to use all eight cameras, but "three orders of magnitude" is obviously way more than 8x. > If they do anything fancy with a neural network (which they almost certainly do), they it might be another 2x the power. If it takes more power to do the same calculations, that's a bad thing, not a defense. > Then you have 10x the power which is one order of magnitude. "It does it super inefficiently, and then uses 10x power on top of that somehow" is awful! Also you're rounding way down. The comparison to the doorbell makes a lot of sense, and "not working the same" is irrelevant to the complaint.
hef19898 7y ago
Yeah, tesla is dancing at to many marriages. AI chips, self-driving, automation. Instead of focusing on mass-producing EVs. had they done just that, developing a top notch EV (which they did) and leverage centuries worth of automotive massproduction for everything not purely EV related we would never have had any discussion about short sellers. But they didn't, so the jury is still out on it if ask me.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I have no idea what they should do/should have done, but if your advice was correct, then it seems like existing manufacturers could have done the same. If so, then how would Tesla compete? If they couldn't, as they seem to have struggled, why would Tesla be different? Maybe the secret is marketing, and the extra engineering is kind of like a MacGuffin. Essential, but the details don't matter.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Traditional car makers have to develop a decent EV, there Tesla has had a huge head start. Tesla has to figure out automotive mass production, there the situation is the other way round. Now, traditional car maker are catching up in terms of EVs. While Tesla is improving on the production side. So Tesla's window of opportunity is closing, slowly but surely. Marketing obviously has an impact in that as well. So Tesla risks, and has risked, a huge window of opportunity. Simply by ignoring the hard learned automotive lessons because of disruption, Musks genius and such. Which was a stupid thing to do, Tesla had the automotive world on EV tech, throwing that away... is stupid.

drcross 7y ago

Perhaps that's the case but Nvidia can't compete in thermal efficiency.

SEJeff 7y ago

Where you're defining better as faster, however, it uses enormously more energy, which impacts overall driving range. It doesn't need to be faster past a certain point. They've already got enough bandwidth to run the entire set of self driving neural networks in duplicate at production speed on the current FSD hardware version 3 computer. There is a point of diminishing returns wrt speed and I think we're quickly approaching if not already surpassing it. Now it is down to efficiency, which the Nvidia solution gets utterly spanked by Tesla's computer on. Ever ran CUDA simulations? GPUs always use enormous amounts of power to do anything, but they're incredible at floating point math.

usrusr 7y ago
It that just enormously more energy if it was running in a portable device or is that actually enormously more energy when running off half a metric ton of traction battery? Nvidia has plenty of experience in scaling their chips down to a wide range of performance/energy tradeoffs.
- SEJeff 7y ago
  And nvidia’s faster neural network solution they say is faster than Tesla’s Chip still uses loads more power than Tesla’s chip does.
rootusrootus 7y ago
Does Tesla really care that much about efficiency? Sentry mode chews through about 1 mile of range for every single hour it is active. My doorbell camera takes significantly less power to do motion detection than my Model 3 does.
- SEJeff 7y ago
  Does your doorbell camera have one or eight cameras? The Model 3 has eight cameras. You’re comparing apples to orangutans.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    You're fanboying for Tesla. The car is pulling as much juice as a gaming rig. The doorbell uses like three orders of magnitude less power. And what do I get for all that power it's consuming? It routinely misses cars and people literally inches away. Sometimes it records, sometimes it doesn't. And lately my car has decided 90% of the time not to turn on the dashcam, though sentry mode activates pretty reliably. It's half-assed. Tesla needs fans to hold them accountable instead of white-knighting for them.
    - SEJeff 7y ago
      You sidestepped my questions. Does your doorbell have one or eight cameras? Even if tesla did it as efficiently as your camera, it would be, at a minimum, eight times more energy. If they do anything fancy with a neural network (which they almost certainly do), they it might be another 2x the power. Then you have 10x the power which is one order of magnitude. Quit making false comparisons to your crappy doorbell. It is very different and they're designed for very different things. They don't work the same.
      - Dylan16807 7y ago
        > You sidestepped my questions. No they didn't. First off it doesn't need to use all eight cameras, but "three orders of magnitude" is obviously way more than 8x. > If they do anything fancy with a neural network (which they almost certainly do), they it might be another 2x the power. If it takes more power to do the same calculations, that's a bad thing, not a defense. > Then you have 10x the power which is one order of magnitude. "It does it super inefficiently, and then uses 10x power on top of that somehow" is awful! Also you're rounding way down. The comparison to the doorbell makes a lot of sense, and "not working the same" is irrelevant to the complaint.

hef19898 7y ago

Yeah, tesla is dancing at to many marriages. AI chips, self-driving, automation. Instead of focusing on mass-producing EVs. had they done just that, developing a top notch EV (which they did) and leverage centuries worth of automotive massproduction for everything not purely EV related we would never have had any discussion about short sellers. But they didn't, so the jury is still out on it if ask me.

perl4ever 7y ago
I have no idea what they should do/should have done, but if your advice was correct, then it seems like existing manufacturers could have done the same. If so, then how would Tesla compete? If they couldn't, as they seem to have struggled, why would Tesla be different? Maybe the secret is marketing, and the extra engineering is kind of like a MacGuffin. Essential, but the details don't matter.
- hef19898 7y ago
  Traditional car makers have to develop a decent EV, there Tesla has had a huge head start. Tesla has to figure out automotive mass production, there the situation is the other way round. Now, traditional car maker are catching up in terms of EVs. While Tesla is improving on the production side. So Tesla's window of opportunity is closing, slowly but surely. Marketing obviously has an impact in that as well. So Tesla risks, and has risked, a huge window of opportunity. Simply by ignoring the hard learned automotive lessons because of disruption, Musks genius and such. Which was a stupid thing to do, Tesla had the automotive world on EV tech, throwing that away... is stupid.