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Do the fundamentals justify Tesla's market cap? No. Is Tesla just a car company? No. Does Tesla still have an exponential growth outlook? Yes. Has Tesla be

Do the fundamentals justify Tesla's market cap? No. Is Tesla just a car company? No. Does Tesla still have an exponential growth outlook? Yes. Has Tesla been able to meet their stated goals in the 1st 10 years? Yes. Do you think Tesla will meet their stated goals for the next 10 years? Probably This is why Tesla market cap is nearly 200 billion.

sschueller 6y ago
"Has Tesla been able to meet their stated goals in the 1st 10 years? Yes" Where is the full self driving car? They are selling a feature that most likely will never exist.
- nickik 6y ago
  That there is so much tech conservatism on Hacker News is quite baffling. The idea that self driving cars will not exist is just nonsense, and Tesla is best place to exploit it.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    Honest question: why is Tesla in a better place to "exploit" self driving than Waymo?
    - mucle6 6y ago
      I've heard that whenever someone uses autopilot on a Telsa, if they override the autopilot, it sends the car's video and commands from before, and uses the override as the "correct" decision. If Tesla has every one of their cars feeding their models more data, it does feel like a natural conclusion that they will be able to overtake waymo. *Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in ML
    - sixQuarks 6y ago
      billions of miles of real-world driving data from a million and growing fleet of vehicles. Tesla has built their own chip optimized fully for self-driving. all-in on vision based full self-driving, which seems to be the only way to solve all the edge cases. Even if google accomplishes self driving with lidar, lidar will never be able to compensate for all edge cases. Human vision already compensates for all edge cases, thus the case for vision based self driving.
      - jcranmer 6y ago
        It's been such a long time since I've heard someone trot out the "Tesla has the best raw data" canard that I thought it had finally died off for real. For starters, Tesla still seems to have this annoying habit of not detecting large, white trucks that are stopped in the middle of the highway, and will happily drive into them at full speed. This isn't exactly an "edge case" issue here.
        OldHand2018 6y ago
        > For starters, Tesla still seems to have this annoying habit of not detecting large, white trucks that are stopped in the middle of the highway, and will happily drive into them at full speed. This isn't exactly an "edge case" issue here. <joke>To be fair, it was an edge case until Tesla started selling cars.</joke>
        sixQuarks 6y ago
        I didn't say best raw data. Lidar obviously produces better raw data on an individual basis. Tesla has more real-world driving data overall. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter. Tesla is the only one going all-in on vision based self driving. That's the key thing that's going to get us to full self driving. Everyone will eventually need to do this.
        jcranmer 6y ago
        > I didn't say best raw data. Lidar obviously produces better raw data on an individual basis. Tesla has more real-world driving data overall. The "real-world driving data" is what I'm calling the "raw data" here, as it's the raw data from the standpoint of the (perceived) AI algorithms driving self-driving cars. > Tesla is the only one going all-in on vision based self driving. That's the key thing that's going to get us to full self driving. Why is it the key thing? Why should worsening the quality of your input data improve the results?
        sixQuarks 6y ago
        Because the important part is the software that interprets that data. Our eyes get worse data than lidar, yet our brains are able to process this data more effectively. Also, lidar is super expensive. It will take much longer to get affordable lidar into everyday vehicles.
    - marvin 6y ago
      Because self-driving is a strategically critical element of any car company that wants to survive once it becomes obvious how to do it. This means that anyone doing self-driving needs to be a manufacturer in order to avoid getting squeezed on terms and profitability. And vice versa. A partnership won’t cut it; one company of the partnership will get screwed and the thing will go nowhere. That’s why having both is critical, and I think this point is not fullt appreaciated. Waymo is the strong party in a negotation with any manufacturer, and the manufacturers know this.
- sixQuarks 6y ago
  full self driving was not part of the first 10 year goal. That's part of the next 10 year goal. https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-j...

sschueller 6y ago

"Has Tesla been able to meet their stated goals in the 1st 10 years? Yes" Where is the full self driving car? They are selling a feature that most likely will never exist.

nickik 6y ago
That there is so much tech conservatism on Hacker News is quite baffling. The idea that self driving cars will not exist is just nonsense, and Tesla is best place to exploit it.
- bhupy 6y ago
  Honest question: why is Tesla in a better place to "exploit" self driving than Waymo?
  - mucle6 6y ago
    I've heard that whenever someone uses autopilot on a Telsa, if they override the autopilot, it sends the car's video and commands from before, and uses the override as the "correct" decision. If Tesla has every one of their cars feeding their models more data, it does feel like a natural conclusion that they will be able to overtake waymo. *Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in ML
  - sixQuarks 6y ago
    billions of miles of real-world driving data from a million and growing fleet of vehicles. Tesla has built their own chip optimized fully for self-driving. all-in on vision based full self-driving, which seems to be the only way to solve all the edge cases. Even if google accomplishes self driving with lidar, lidar will never be able to compensate for all edge cases. Human vision already compensates for all edge cases, thus the case for vision based self driving.
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      It's been such a long time since I've heard someone trot out the "Tesla has the best raw data" canard that I thought it had finally died off for real. For starters, Tesla still seems to have this annoying habit of not detecting large, white trucks that are stopped in the middle of the highway, and will happily drive into them at full speed. This isn't exactly an "edge case" issue here.
      - OldHand2018 6y ago
        > For starters, Tesla still seems to have this annoying habit of not detecting large, white trucks that are stopped in the middle of the highway, and will happily drive into them at full speed. This isn't exactly an "edge case" issue here. <joke>To be fair, it was an edge case until Tesla started selling cars.</joke>
      - sixQuarks 6y ago
        I didn't say best raw data. Lidar obviously produces better raw data on an individual basis. Tesla has more real-world driving data overall. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter. Tesla is the only one going all-in on vision based self driving. That's the key thing that's going to get us to full self driving. Everyone will eventually need to do this.
        jcranmer 6y ago
        > I didn't say best raw data. Lidar obviously produces better raw data on an individual basis. Tesla has more real-world driving data overall. The "real-world driving data" is what I'm calling the "raw data" here, as it's the raw data from the standpoint of the (perceived) AI algorithms driving self-driving cars. > Tesla is the only one going all-in on vision based self driving. That's the key thing that's going to get us to full self driving. Why is it the key thing? Why should worsening the quality of your input data improve the results?
        sixQuarks 6y ago
        Because the important part is the software that interprets that data. Our eyes get worse data than lidar, yet our brains are able to process this data more effectively. Also, lidar is super expensive. It will take much longer to get affordable lidar into everyday vehicles.
  - marvin 6y ago
    Because self-driving is a strategically critical element of any car company that wants to survive once it becomes obvious how to do it. This means that anyone doing self-driving needs to be a manufacturer in order to avoid getting squeezed on terms and profitability. And vice versa. A partnership won’t cut it; one company of the partnership will get screwed and the thing will go nowhere. That’s why having both is critical, and I think this point is not fullt appreaciated. Waymo is the strong party in a negotation with any manufacturer, and the manufacturers know this.
sixQuarks 6y ago
full self driving was not part of the first 10 year goal. That's part of the next 10 year goal. https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-j...