Study of TSLA and TSLL
Things to look out for $TSLA in 2025:
– Lithium refining coming online
– Affordable vehicle models
– Refreshed vehicles
– Megapack Shanghai
– Unsupervised FSD (Robotaxis) V14
– FSD entering China/Europe
– More interest rate cuts
– Roadster?
– Licensing FSD deals?
– AI5 chip will be ready in 2025
– Optimus becoming operational in Tesla factories?
– FSD licensing
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– Tesla’s annual meeting will be held on June 13, 2024, at 3:30 p.m. Central Time (CT). Shareholders will vote both on moving Tesla’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas and Musk’s rescinded pay package. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that the Cybercab robotaxi will be unveiled at an event on August 8, 2024.
If majority of shareholders vote against Musk, Musk might leave and take AI out of Tsla, stock price will tank, then all those shareholders will lose, big time. This is probably a binary event.
Tesla has set lofty goals amid more recent struggles, but history says Musk and his team will probably achieve their goals, which could bring about a stock recovery and take Tesla to record highs.
Yes, Tesla has struggled in recent years as it has sought to transform itself, and rising competition, lower gross margins, and the lack of clarity on the future of a lower-cost vehicle seemed to disappoint shareholders.
- 12/01/2024 – V13 is here (1) Ashok Elluswamy on X: “v13.2 has started rolling out to limited external customers. https://t.co/DToKHQsWN5” / X
(1) Owen Sparks on X: “Tesla Ships FSD v13 – Here’s The Rundown” / X
BREAKING: DAN IVES SAYS $TSLA COULD BE AT $600 IN NEXT 18 MONTHS He says $500-$600 could be conservative !
https://x.com/i/status/1862116407594377698
- Elon Musk seeks $6 billion for xAI’s Memphis data center
- Funding to purchase 100,000 Nvidia chips for AI projects
- Data center will power Tesla’s Full Self-Driving capabilities
(1) Elon Musk on X: “@BG2Pod @Tesla @Waymo @bgurley @altcap @FredaDuan Coming soon” / X
- v13: 5-6x improved Miles per Critical Intervention (“mpci”) (Source: Tesla 3Q Earnings Call)
- v12.5: 3x improved mpci (Source: x.com/Tesla_AI/statu)
- v12.4: 5-10x improvement over v12.3 (Source: x.com/elonmusk/statu) Compared to Jan 2024 (v12.1): v12.5 shows 100x improvement; v13 will show a 1,000x improvement (Source: Tesla 3Q Earnings Call)
- By 2Q25, expect FSD to be safer than a human driver (Source: Tesla 3Q Earnings Call)
Comparison 1 – Human Driver: Miles per reported accident = 550k (Total miles driven in the U.S. per year = 3.3 trillion; Total reported accidents in the U.S. annually = 6 million). This means around 60k miles per minor incident, which lines up with the average American driving 13.5k miles/year, having an accident every 3 years.
Comparison 2 – Waymo: Waymo’s miles per disengagement = 17k (Source: California DMV, 2023) It’s likely higher now, but the exact number isn’t public.
If the math is right, FSD would hit ~100k mpci by 2Q25, meaning v13 is above 10k (20k?) mpci, and v12.5 ~5k. In Jan 2024 (v12.1), this was likely just ~50 miles per disengagement. driver’s I can only imagine the scaling here to continue, with more data, better inferencing hardware (HW5 or AI5 next summer?), and more training capacity over time.
A few thoughts I’ve been having about FSD/robotaxi, would love to hear pushbacks:
1/ Why does $TSLA need a new Cybercab model when they can use the Model 3/Y for autonomous driving? It’s about cost + adoption. Autonomous driving is a futuristic concept that requires a ton of public education. A sleek, futuristic car with *no steering wheel* running autonomously is the best ad for self-driving. Makes total sense to me that $TSLA saw a significant jump in FSD adoption post 10/10 (Source: 3Q earnings call). Also, Cybercab will cost around $25k, with 5x better cycle times and reduced parts, making it an efficient choice for scaling.
2/ What’s causing the discrepancy between my math and engagement ratios from trackers (~200 miles)? Why does it feel different in a $TSLA vs. a Waymo in terms of the urge to disengage? I think most tracker data comes from user-reported disengagements, and when sitting in the driver’s seat, you naturally feel more responsible, leading to a stronger urge to intervene. But this doesn’t mean every disengagement was necessary to avoid an accident. The experience sitting in the passenger seat (like in $Waymo) feels entirely different—”out of sight, out of mind.”
3/ Why start the robotaxi fleet with the Model 3/Y? Apart from fast production, it likely has to do with regulation. As Elon mentioned, each state has its own requirements for whether a safety driver is needed to get approval, and using existing models like the Model 3/Y allows $TSLA to adapt more quickly to these differences.
Other thoughts: How will robotaxis impact car ownership? On one hand, robotaxis lower the cost of ownership, making it more accessible and driving adoption. Plus, your car could generate income for you (+ve for ownership). But, on the other hand, with autonomous fleets available, the need to actually own a car could diminish.
Autonomous trucking & the disruptions? It’s not just passenger cars getting autonomous—Elon mentioned Semi trucks will also become autonomous! This could disrupt industries like logistics, freight, and transportation, with major implications for shipping costs, delivery times, and employment in those sectors.
Regulation? Why does it have to be state-by-state? We really need national-level approval for autonomous driving instead of the current state-by-state process, which is inefficient and unclear.
$TSLA has been criticized for overpromising FSD for years, but now they’re at a tipping point. The value of autonomy is about to be fully realized. Truly a “many companies in one”. When 2M-4M Cybercabs are on the road, it’ll feel like living in a sci-fi movie—armies of robots around us reshaping the future. Can’t wait to see how the world will be reshaped by an autonomous future!
- 11/27/2024 – Inside Elon Musk’s Quest to Beat OpenAI at Its Own Game – WSJ The Tesla CEO is racing to make xAI, which launched after its competitors, the world’s most advanced AI company
Now xAI is trying to stand on its own. Earlier this month it released a paid tool developers can use to build products using Grok, offering discounts as an incentive. As soon as next month, it plans to launch a stand-alone consumer app, like ChatGPT, according to people familiar with the matter.
- 11/23/2024 – The Next AI Battle: Who Can Get the Most Nvidia Chips in One Place – WSJ Musk’s xAI and Meta are among firms building clusters of advanced chips
Elon Musk’s xAI built a supercomputer it calls Colossus—with 100,000 of Nvidia’s Hopper AI chips—in Memphis in a matter of months. Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said last month that his company was already training its most advanced AI models with a conglomeration of chips he called “bigger than anything I’ve seen reported for what others are doing.”
Huang marveled on a podcast last month at the speed with which Musk had built his Colossus cluster and affirmed that more, larger ones were on the way. He pointed to efforts to train models distributed across multiple data centers.
“Do we think that we need millions of GPUs? No doubt,” Huang said. “That is a certainty now. And the question is how do we architect it from a data center perspective.”
Unprecedented super clusters are already getting airplay. Musk posted last month on his social-media platform X that his 100,000-chip Colossus super cluster was “soon to become” a 200,000-chip cluster in a single building. He also posted in June that the next step would probably be a 300,000-chip cluster of Nvidia’s newest chips next summer.
The rise of super clusters comes as their operators prepare for the Blackwell chips, which are set to start shipping out in the next couple of months. They are estimated to cost around $30,000 each, meaning a cluster of 100,000 would cost $3 billion, not counting the price of the power-generation infrastructure and IT equipment around the chips.
Tesla recently announced it has made the iconic Cybertruck more accessible, rolling the much-hyped EV pickup out in Canada. The move marks an official declaration of the Tesla Cybertruck now being available in all of North America, as it was launched in Mexico this past September.
Elon Musk STUNS Viewers About Tesla While Playing Diablo Optimus will be in year 2026
- 11/18/2024 – (2) Sawyer Merritt on X: “BREAKING: Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have told advisers they plan to make a federal framework for fully self-driving vehicles one of the Transportation Department’s priorities, easing U.S. rules for self-driving cars. https://t.co/fkeLdAc5Xc” / X
- 11/18/2024 – Trump Team Is Seeking to Ease US Rules for Self-Driving Cars could be big news for TSLA
Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have told advisers they plan to make a federal framework for fully self-driving vehicles one of the Transportation Department’s priorities, according to people familiar with the matter.
If new rules enable cars without human controls, it will directly benefit Elon Musk, the Tesla Inc. chief executive officer and Trump mega-donor who’s become a powerful fixture in the president-elect’s inner circle. He’s bet the future of the EV maker on self-driving technology and artificial intelligence.
- 11/13/2024 – (1) Pejjy on X: “Holy shit. DOGE IS REAL! 😂” / X
- 11/12/2024 – (1) Herbert Ong on X: “$TSLA beyond autos 🚀🚀🚀” / X
Tesla to produce flying car?
川普大胜，股价暴涨，特斯拉未来会是一马平川吗？ youtube.com/live/OgdfJ59H0 美东时间周六晚上8:30和四位朋友直播聊聊后选举时代特斯拉的基本面和未来看点。
，大卫（大小马聊科技） 部分讨论话题： 1. 马斯克all in川普的真实意图是什么？ 2. 川普当选，特斯拉基本面变了吗？ 3. 马斯克会继续深度参与美国政治改革吗，对特斯拉投资者意味着什么？ 4. 川普会报答马斯克吗？如何帮他？ 5. 马斯克中美三方关系和对特斯拉的潜在影响.
- 11/07/2024 – Is Tesla working on scaling of Optimus?
Tesla, Inc. Q3 2024 Financial Results and Q&A Webcast | Tesla Investor Relations
Top 28 Takeaways from Tesla’s Q3 2024 Earnings Call
Here are the top 28 takeaways:
1. 7 Million Cars Completed
Tesla hit a major milestone, completing 7 million cars yesterday, showcasing their rapid scaling capability in global vehicle production.
2. Record-Breaking Quarter
Q3 2024 is officially Tesla’s best quarter ever, highlighting their strong financial performance despite a challenging macroeconomic environment. FCF was nearly 17bn over expectations.
Highlights:
• EPS (non-GAAP): $0.72 vs. $0.58 est
• EPS (GAAP): $0.62
• Revenue: $25.18 vs. $25.4B est
• Total GAAP gross margin: 19.8%
• Net income (GAAP): $2.176B
Stock shot to $240
3. Fully Autonomous Vehicles with Zero Incidents
Tesla’s autonomous vehicles at We Robot event making strides with real-world use cases. Thousands of passengers were safely transported without any reported incidents, further emphasizing Tesla’s leadership in autonomy.
4. Optimus in Action
Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, demonstrated its ability to navigate and operate autonomously in crowds, hinting at future commercial applications.
5. Affordable Models Coming in 2025
Tesla plans to launch more affordable models in the first half of 2025, including a new model referred to as the “Model 2.5” with a projected price of $25,000. This could dramatically expand Tesla’s market reach.
6. 20-30% Vehicle Growth in 2025
Tesla anticipates 20-30% growth in vehicle units next year, further accelerating their market penetration.
7. Cybertruck Production Surge by 2026
Tesla aims to ramp up Cybercab production to 2 million units per year by 2026 across two factories, with the potential to reach 4 million units globally.
8. 4680 Battery Technology Progress
Tesla’s 4680 battery cells are nearing a critical milestone, becoming the most competitive battery technology in the North American market. The company also has plans to surpass current performance with innovative improvements across battery models.
9. Reliance on External Suppliers
Despite Tesla’s internal battery advancements, they will continue to source cells from other manufacturers to meet the increasing demand for vehicles and energy products like the Megapack.
10. Autonomy Breakthroughs
Tesla is seeing significant improvement in autonomous driving capabilities, with miles between human interventions dramatically increasing, especially with software update version 12.5.
11. Smart Summon and FSD 13 Launch Tesla is preparing to roll out Full Self-Driving (FSD) version 13, which will include a smarter “Summon” feature. Tesla AI director Ashok will provide more details soon.
12. 100x Improvement in FSD Safety
Since the beginning of 2024, Tesla has seen a 100x improvement in the safety of its FSD software. Version 13 is expected to deliver a 1,000x improvement by the second quarter of 2025.
13. Human-Level Driving by Q2 2025
By mid-2025, Tesla expects their FSD to surpass the average human driver in terms of safety and reliability.
14. Increased FSD Adoption Rate
Tesla reported a significant increase in FSD take rates, especially following their successful October 10th event, showing that more consumers are adopting Tesla’s autonomous capabilities.
15. Tesla Employees Testing RoboTaxi
Tesla employees in the Bay Area are already using the Tesla app for ride-hailing services powered by autonomous vehicles. The safety driver is still present, but this signals Tesla’s step toward a full-fledged RoboTaxi network.
16. Expanding Robotaxi Operations
Tesla continues to make progress on its RoboTaxi initiative, aiming to launch a broader service by leveraging its growing FSD fleet and AI technology.
17. Continued Growth in Energy Storage
Tesla’s energy storage products, such as the Megapack, are expanding rapidly, supported by global demand for renewable energy solutions. Energy storage at 30.5% gross margin!!! HIGHEST EVER! Lathrope scaling from 20 to 40 gwh and capacity heading to 100 GWH when Shanghai launches
18. Optimism Around Battery Supply Chain
Tesla remains bullish on their ability to scale battery production and secure supplies despite ongoing global shortages of critical materials.
19. Global Expansion of Charging Infrastructure
Tesla is expanding its Supercharger network globally, positioning itself as the leader in EV infrastructure, especially with cross-manufacturer compatibility. Q3 growth was higher than Q2.
20. FSD on Track for Wider Adoption
Tesla is accelerating its FSD release, which will become more widely available globally in 2025, marking another major step toward mass adoption of autonomous driving. Will also continue free 1 month trials.
🚙”v13 of FSD is going out soon” -> “a very dramatic improvement”
Unsupervised FSD in CA and TX. CA loves regulation and there is a pathway. TX is easier. 2025 for sure and before eoy beyond CA and TX. AV need Federal Approval. FMBSS is Federal already.
21. Focus on Software Revenues
Tesla’s long-term strategy includes significant contributions from software sales, particularly through FSD subscriptions and other over-the-air software features.
22. AI and Robotics Leading the Way
Tesla’s AI efforts, not only in cars but also in robotics, show the company’s ambition to revolutionize multiple industries. Pierre F: Excess Compute – the more u train the less load it takes. As u get better at driving it becomes a background task. Inference is tiny compared to a 10kw bank of GPUs – and petabytes of data are streaming in.
23. Improvements in Efficiency
Tesla is consistently driving operational efficiency across manufacturing and software development, which is contributing to their record profitability. Their goal is to eliminate service by making the cars perfect. Start at the source.
24. Tesla’s Dominance in EV Market
Tesla’s market share remains dominant, with continued growth even as more traditional automakers enter the electric vehicle space. No other OEM is even close per Elon.
25. Ambitious Expansion Targets for 2026 and Beyond
Tesla’s future growth plans include aggressive vehicle production increases across all segments, from consumer cars to semi-trucks.
26. Cybertruck’s Market Disruption
With the upcoming mass production of the Cybertruck, Tesla is poised to disrupt the pickup truck market, which could bring significant market share gains in the coming years.
27. Commitment to Sustainability
28. Strong Financial Outlook
With continued innovation and scaling, Tesla’s financial outlook remains strong for the foreseeable future, promising robust revenue growth and profitability.
Still 94% gainers to get back to ATH
Final Thoughts
Tesla’s Q3 2024 earnings call was full of bold claims and innovative developments that underscore their dominant position in the electric vehicle and autonomous technology sectors. With ambitious targets for production, affordability, and self-driving, Tesla continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in transportation and beyond.
- 10/06/2024 – Tesla’s ‘Full Self Driving’ Cars Need Humans to Constantly Stop Them from Doing Dangerous Things, New Study Finds (msn.com) – FSD is still not good enough for robotaxi so far
FSD Community Tracker (teslafsdtracker.com)
Anew study found that Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” still needs humans to intervene frequently to save them from potentially dangerous outcomes.
Over the course of driving more than 1,000 miles in Southern California, drivers had to step in more than 75 times to stop dangerous behavior, according to tests done by AMCI Testing.
That is about one intervention every 13 miles.
The study tested Tesla models with Full Self Driving builds 12.5.1 and 12.5.3 on city streets, two-lane rural highways, interstate highways and mountain roads.
Some of the dangerous behavior exhibited by Full Self Driving included driving through a red light and veering into an oncoming lane while another was coming on a curvy road.
“Whether it’s a lack of computing power, an issue with buffering as the car gets ‘behind’ on calculations, or some small detail of surrounding assessment, it’s impossible to know. These failures are the most insidious,” Guy Mangiamele, director of AMCI Testing, told Ars Technica.
He continued, “But there are also continuous failures of simple programming inadequacy, such as only starting lane changes toward a freeway exit a scant tenth of a mile before the exit itself, that handicaps the system and casts doubt on the overall quality of its base programming.”
The study did also acknowledge impressive feats though, including pulling into a gap between two parked cars to let another vehicle pass through. The study also praised Full Self Driving for how it handled blind curves.
- 10/06/2024 – A comparison of today’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ versus the 2000 tech bubble; Bill Ackman’s critique of Harvard; Bloomberg on the Harvard endowment’s poor performance; My Harvard Business School 30th reunion | Stansberry Research – Is TSLA way overvalued so far?
- 10/06/2024 – Tilson’s email on TSLA
My last emails to this (Tesla/Musk) email list triggered some angry responses, so let me repeat a few things:
- This is one of my PERSONAL email lists (of which I have more than a dozen active ones on a variety of topics that interest me: Ukraine, Israel, China, Africa, politics, short selling, education reform, criminal justice reform, tennis, adventure sports, the weight-loss drugs, etc.). It has nothing to do with Stansberry Research.
- In my emails here, I cover not only Tesla but also Musk, who I think is endlessly fascinating (and increasingly infuriating). It seems like he’s trying to surpass Rudi Giuliani for the title as the person whose reputation has fallen the furthest.
- Unlike my investing dailies, I can and will include articles and opinions that are highly political (as Musk has become).
- If what I write isn’t of interest to you (or angers you), simply click the link at the top of the email and you’ll be unsubscribed.
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Catching up on lots of current and old articles…
1) From the front page of today’s WSJ: Tesla Reports First Rise in Quarterly Deliveries This Year. The stock has rebounded and is now flat on the year.
2) From the front page of the business section of today’s NYT: 5 Days With Elon Musk on X: Deepfakes, Falsehoods and Lots of Memes (also, here’s a related article in Rolling Stone: How Elon Musk and X Became the Biggest Purveyors of Online Misinformation)
3) A Tesla supporter posted this to make the case that the media is unfairly focused on driver and passenger deaths in Teslas vs. other brands:
This is misleading in at least two ways. First, the reason for all of the attention is that Tesla – and Tesla alone among all automakers – has recklessly overpromised (and mostly still does) what its “Full Self-Driving” can do. Those three words would lead anyone to think that the Tesla is fully self driving, right? But because it’s nowhere close to this, some Tesla owners have been in terrible – even fatal – accidents. THAT’S why there’s been so much media attention.
Also, the data is wrong and dated (from 2020). According to www.tesladeaths.com, 577 drivers or passengers have died in Teslas in total, 47 of them related to Autopilot.
Are Teslas more or less likely to get into accidents? Tesla and its critics totally disagree on this…
Tesla has a page on its website showing that its cars are far less likely to get into accidents than the US average:
But this is contradicted by this analysis by LendingTree of 30 brands: Tesla Has The Highest Accident Rate Of Any Auto Brand because the reason for the attention is Tesla over-promising what FSD can do, which HAS led to some deaths – but may have also saved an unknown number of lives. Also, 2020 is pretty old data:
4) An interesting 15-min CNBC video: How BYD, Nio And Other Chinese EVs Compare To Tesla
- 5) Various articles I don’t have time to comment on:
- The Nation: Tesla’s Toxic Culture Has Spread to Its New Plant in Austin (following up on a earlier article in April: The Toxic Culture at Tesla)
- NYT: Elon Musk Says Robotaxis Are Tesla’s Future. Experts Have Doubts.
- WSJ: Elon Musk Gave Tens of Millions to Republican Causes Far Earlier Than Previously Known
- NYT: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Elon?
- WSJ: How Elon Musk Broke With Biden and the Democrats
- NYT: Elon Musk Blasts Venezuela’s Maduro in an Escalating War of Words
- 10/04/2024 – (1) Elon Musk on X: “@WholeMarsBlog FSD will soon exceed 10,000 miles between critical interventions, which is a year of driving for most people” / X
- 09/30/2024 – FSD on Cybertruck (1) Sawyer Merritt on X: “I gotta hand it to the @Tesla FSD/AI team. When I first saw this list of goals for September, it looked like it would be tough to meet them all. But with the launch of FSD on the Cybertruck tonight, they’ve officially hit every single September target. While some Sept items https://t.co/qWYvRKWXDv” / X
- 09/26/2024 – (1) Elon Musk on X: “This will be one for the history books https://t.co/qQ0HZyGMZE” / X
ChatGPT creator OpenAI plans to shun its founding principles by completely overhauling its business structure to become a for-profit company, according to reports.
The restructuring aims to attract new investment to the artificial intelligence firm, Reuters reported, with co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman receiving equity worth up to $150 billion.
- 09/25/2024 – Buy Tesla call options ahead of two October catalyst events, Goldman analysts say | Seeking Alpha be aware of the highest volume of tsla call options
Tesla call options (TSLA) are one of Goldman Sachs’ recommended trades. The EV giant currently accounts for 17% of all S&P 500 (SP500) options volumes, surpassing Nvidia (NVDA), which accounts for 14% of volumes.
Tesla call options (TSLA) are one of Goldman Sachs’ recommended trades. The EV giant currently accounts for 17% of all S&P 500 (SP500) options volumes, surpassing Nvidia (NVDA), which accounts for 14% of volumes.
Hyundai’s autonomous driving technology has just made a significant leap. Their 100% electric SUV, the Ioniq 5, has successfully passed the driving test for autonomous cars in the USA. The American market can be tough to crack for autonomous vehicles, with surveys showing that up to 70% of people are hesitant to trust them. But Hyundai isn’t giving up. They took their Ioniq 5 to the bustling streets of Las Vegas, subjecting it to the same rigorous driving test that regular drivers face. And guess what? It passed!
Andrej Karpathy joins Sarah and Elad in this week of No Priors. Andrej, who was a founding team member of OpenAI and the former Tesla Autopilot leader, needs no introduction. In this episode, Andrej discusses the evolution of self-driving cars, comparing Tesla’s and Waymo’s approaches, and the technical challenges ahead. They also cover Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot, the bottlenecks of AI development today, and how AI capabilities could be further integrated with human cognition. Andrej shares more about his new mission Eureka Labs and his insights into AI-driven education and what young people should study to prepare for the reality ahead. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Karpathy
Show Notes:
0:00 Introduction
0:33 Evolution of self-driving cars
2:23 The Tesla vs. Waymo approach to self-driving
6:32 Training Optimus with automotive models
10:26 Reasoning behind the humanoid form factor
13:22 Existing challenges in robotics
16:12 Bottlenecks of AI progress
20:27 Parallels between human cognition and AI models
22:12 Merging human cognition with AI capabilities
27:10 Building high performance small models
30:33 Andrej’s current work in AI-enabled education
36:17 How AI-driven education reshapes knowledge networks and status
41:26 Eureka Labs
42:25 What young people study to prepare for the future
Due to popular demand, Tesla AI team release roadmap:
- September 2024 – v12.5.2 with ~3x improved miles between necessary interventions – v12.5.2 on AI3 computer (unified models for AI3 and AI4) – Actually Smart Summon – Cybertruck Autopark – Eye-tracking with sunglasses – End-to-End network on highway – Cybertruck FSD
- October 2024 – Unpark, Park and Reverse in FSD – v13 with ~6x improved miles between necessary interventions
- Q1 2025 – FSD in Europe (pending regulatory approval) – FSD in China (pending regulatory approval)
BREAKING: After years of waiting, @Tesla has officially launched Actually Smart Summon (ASS), its next-gen Smart Summon feature, to normal owners! Tesla: “Buckle up for the ride of your life, except, surprise! You’re not in the car. ASS (Actually Smart Summon) allows your vehicle to come to you, or head to a spot that you choose, all on its own. It’s like magic, but with more tech and less wand-waving.”
This weekend, the @xAI team brought our Colossus 100k H100 training cluster online. From start to finish, it was done in 122 days. Colossus is the most powerful AI training system in the world. Moreover, it will double in size to 200k (50k H200s) in a few months. Excellent work by the team, Nvidia and our many partners/suppliers.
- 09/02/2024 – (1) Elon Musk on X: “💯” / X
Kamala supports what Brazil just did to X. How do I know? She wants to do it here:
TSLA earning dates
Q2 July 17, 2024
Q3 Oct 16, 2024 (Gift Montage (:15 seconds) (youtube.com) Big money is loading up on Tesla Stock calls)
Q4 Jan 02, 2025
Catalysts
(1) Elon Musk on X: “Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8” / X
06/12/2024 (1) Elon Musk on X: “@WholeMarsBlog Yes” / X
Elon Musk’s 5 manufacturing principles are:
1. **Make your requirements less dumb**: Always question the assumptions and requirements. Don’t assume that the current way of doing things is the best or only way.
2. **Try very hard to delete the part or process**: Look for ways to simplify the process by eliminating unnecessary steps or components.
3. **Simplify or optimize**: After removing unnecessary elements, focus on making the remaining parts of the process as efficient as possible.
4. **Accelerate cycle time**: Once the process is simplified and optimized, look for ways to speed it up without sacrificing quality.
5. **Automate**: Finally, automate the process to the extent possible to reduce human error and increase efficiency.
These principles are based on the idea of constantly challenging and improving the manufacturing process to make it more efficient and effective.
- Big Risk of Tsla Tesla CEO Elon Musk admits ‘two homicidal maniacs tried to kill him’ in past seven months (msn.com)
FSD news FSD Community Tracker (teslafsdtracker.com)
Tesla CEO
has shared a new video tonight from inside the Gigafactory in Austin Texas. The recent extension to the south side of the factory now houses tens of thousands of high-performance AI chips, combining to make one of the largest compute clusters in the world.
Tesla famously made the decision to redirect Nvidia’s H100 GPUs from Tesla to xAI a few months back, which sparked considerable discussion regarding resource allocation across his enterprises.
Initially, 12,000 GPUs intended for Tesla were redirected to xAI, with Musk emphasizing that Tesla lacked the immediate infrastructure to utilize these chips effectively.
It seems that outrage was not really necessary, with Tesla’s turn now arriving to expand their AI training datacenter. It is expected that between Nvidia and Tesla’s own Dojo chips, that between 85,000 and 100,000 H100 equivalents, will be in place by the year-end.
FSD 12.5.1.5 first impressions on HW3 “legacy” Model S (~45 min drive) – the 12.5 magic is definitely still there. it takes natural paths through all the turns, has very good lane positioning, and much better acceleration / braking than any version so far – it’s not hands free and still nags just as much as before, which was expected as there is no interior camera in the legacy S – the last few mph coming to a stop is a bit less smooth than my Y, likely because this car can’t regen to 0mph (you can feel when it starts using the brake pedal) – more micro braking and overall slower than usual in the drives that I did, but it was pitch black outside. need more testing to see if there’s a real difference – it stopped at an intersection in my neighborhood with no stop sign, the HW4 Y has never stopped there before I’m nitpicking a bit to try to describe every little difference I’m feeling, but this was a solid drive with no interventions. but touching the steering wheel all the time feels like an intervention when you aren’t used to it anymore bravo
@Tesla_AI
team. I know this couldn’t have been easy
We were able to achieve similar performance as the AI4 12.5 release with a relatively smaller model for AI3. Deploying the larger model requires us to implement a few kernels in the compiler to emulate the same operations that are natively supported on the AI4 hardware. The team is actively working on implementing and verifying those operations. Combined with other model compression techniques, we think we can run the same 12.5 model on both the hardware platforms in the future. That said, model parameter count is just one of the many axes of performance improvement. Dataset distribution, dataset quality, model architecture, training compute, etc., also have tremendous impact on the final performance.
- 08/09/2024 – Uber CEO says there’s a potentially big problem with Elon Musk’s Robotaxi idea (msn.com)
Khosrowshahi said he thinks the same will be true of cars. For example, Tesla could build its autonomous vehicles and then partner with Uber to turn them into a ride-hailing service.
“It’s taken us 15 years. It’s taken us tens of billions of dollars of capital, and we can provide that instantly to a partner,” Khosrowshahi said. “Hopefully, Tesla will be one of those partners.”
- Uber’s CEO has some doubts about Elon Musk’s Tesla Robotaxi plan.
- Dara Khosrowshahi questioned if Tesla owners would want strangers riding in their cars.
- He also said Musk might be underestimating the customer service side of the business.
On an episode of “The Logan Bartlett Show” released on Friday, Khosrowshahi said it “wasn’t clear” to him that the average Tesla owner would want “to have that car be ridden in by a complete stranger.”
He also doubts that Tesla’s taxis could meet demand during peak times.
“Probably the times at which you’re going to want your Tesla are probably going to be the same times that ridership is going to be at a peak,” he said. Comparatively, Khosrowshahi said Uber can quickly adjust the number of part-time drivers to meet demand during rush hour or large events.
But Khosrowshahi said he doesn’t think of the business as a “zero-sum game” and seemed to welcome collaboration with the EV giant. He made an analogy to fast food chains, which have their own “direct channel to consumers” but also work with other platforms in the marketplace to maximize efficiency and usage — like delivery services.
Khosrowshahi said he thinks the same will be true of cars. For example, Tesla could build its autonomous vehicles and then partner with Uber to turn them into a ride-hailing service.
“It’s taken us 15 years. It’s taken us tens of billions of dollars of capital, and we can provide that instantly to a partner,” Khosrowshahi said. “Hopefully, Tesla will be one of those partners.”
I tested Tesla’s latest Full Self Driving software. It’s gotten a lot better.
Barron’s, via me, has tested Tesla’s FSD driver assistance features several times for many months. Miles driven with the software in control now measures in the thousands.
Developing and improving self-driving cars is a big deal for the industry and for Tesla stock. CEO Elon Musk measures the opportunity in the trillions. It doesn’t have to be that big to still be a big deal.
The reaction of passengers in the car is telling. Some don’t like it, essentially demanding I maintain full control. FSD makes them nervous for no other reason than it makes them nervous. Others are blown away, impressed by what the car can do.
Those views mirror investors’ thinking. Some believe that Musk chronically overpromises and that truly self-driving cars are years, if not decades, away. Some see version 12.5 and believe wholeheartedly that robotaxis are just a step away.
What’s important for any investor to remember is that Tesla stock is largely about FSD right now. Bears shouldn’t get too hung up on EV deliveries. Other investors marveling at Tesla’s rising PE ratio while year-over-year earnings decline should remember that billions of Tesla’s stock market value is represented by FSD potential.
Tesla bulls should probably realize that while impressive, few of us, if any, have the expertise needed to judge when the FSD self-driving tipping point will be reached.
Tesla will try to explain when the tipping point will come when it hosts a robotaxi event on Oct. 10. Along with showcasing the technology, that event should include a physical robotaxi to look at while detailing a robotaxi business model.
FSD 12.4.2 first impressions: – excessive lane changes seem COMPLETELY fixed (praise the lord hallelujah!) – multiple incorrect speed limits in my area have been fixed (silent map update?) – speed control in general is much better, it usually hovers right around the speed limit or slightly over – had some freakishly good pedestrian interactions (I will post a video of one example shortly) – it has done multiple maneuvers that have proven to me that it has grown a pair since the last update – multiple unprotected turns have been handled better than ever before – steering wheel nags have increased when driver monitoring is unavailable (like wearing sunglasses) which is a bit of a bummer I was nervous with my last 12.4 experience, but happy to report I’m seeing some real progress here. from my initial drives, feels like it’s ready for wide release
FSD REVIEW: during his test drive of FSD V12.3.6 when heading towards Google Headquarters, XPeng ceo can’t help praising how precise and smooth the system is. He even goes so far as to say FSD drives better than someone new to California like himeself most of the time. FSD beats him on smooth drive and handling. Throughout the entire video, clearly there’s no hide of excitement from someone who will compete with Tesla in China pretty soon.
https://x.com/i/status/1806051860576698559
• Shanghai is letting 10 $TSLA cars test their FSD software, a big step towards robotaxis in China. • Tesla’s robotaxi vision involves a hybrid model: Tesla-owned fleet operates like Uber, customer-owned cars join as needed like Airbnb. • Tesla plans to switch to Hardware 4 for training, which will greatly enhance FSD capabilities compared to Hardware 3. • Hardware 5 is expected in about 18 months, with 10X more computing power than Hardware 4. • Elon Musk is confident about nearly eliminating interventions in autonomous driving, possibly in future updates like version 12.5 or 12.6.
06/14/2024 – Tesla’s New Version Of ‘Full Self-Driving’ Is Better, But Flawed (msn.com)
Future of AI – Wise words from a recent interview with @geoffreyhinton, one of the smartest people in the world regarding AI Elon Musk on X: “Wise words from a recent interview with @geoffreyhinton, one of the smartest people in the world regarding AI https://t.co/11A7fJpLcs” / X
Waymo is now available for anyone in San Francisco to fire up the app and hail a robotaxi. The Alphabet-owned company has had government approval to operate paid driverless cars in the city since last August but had been working its way through a waitlist in the months since. Following Cruise’s unceremonious exit from California (after dragging a pedestrian 20 feet and concealing evidence from regulators), Waymo is now the only company with autonomous commercial cars in the state.
Waymo says its cars have logged over 3.8 million driverless miles in San Francisco, and the company claims its vehicles tally “tens of thousands of weekly trips” there. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Waymo’s fleet in the city has about 300 cars, up from around 250 in January. However, despite the wider availability, it reportedly doesn’t plan to aggressively expand its San Francisco lineup in the near future.
Elon’s master plan 4 – (2) Elon Musk on X: “Working on the Tesla Master Plan 4. It will be epic.” / X
Timestamps:
Part 1: Master Plan 3 02:12 What does it take to convert Earth to sustainable energy generation & use (Elon Musk & Drew Baglino)
Part 2: Executing Master Plan 3 29:04 Vehicle Design (Lars Moravy & Franz von Holzhausen) 41:26 Powertrain (Colin Campbell) 50:07 Electronic Architecture (Pete Bannon & David Lau) 1:09:14 Full Self-Driving (Ashok Elluswamy) 1:19:11 Bot Update (E. Musk & A. Elluswamy) 1:24:21 Charging (Rebecca Tinucci) 1:32:52 Supply Chain (Karn Budhiraj & Roshan Thomas) 1:53:48 Manufacturing (Tom Zhu & D. Baglino) 2:07:11 Energy (D. Baglino & Mike Snyder)
Part 3: Impact at Tesla 2:19:59 Impact (Laurie Shelby & Brandon Ehrheart) 2:26:38 Financials (Zach Kirkhorn) 2:42:00 New Gigafactory Announcement
Q&A 2:44:42 Timeline for new vehicle design 2:47:02 Minining 2:50:32 Involving the rest of the industry 2:52:18 Number of vehicle models, bidirectional charging 2:56:05 Market share in China & political relations with China 2:57:57 Velocity of learning cycles 2:58:48 Demand 3:01:27 Next vehicle models & cannibalizing demand 3:08:45 Cost optimization by region 3:12:51 Capex guidance and Tesla AI 3:16:12 Dry battery electrodes 3:21:29 Managing a large organization & generative AI
PDF presentation: digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents
X does this mean that HW3 is not capable to handle true FSD?
@CybercatX01 访谈X上的一位自动驾驶Geek，用最直白的语言解析自动驾驶和特斯拉FSD。为什么自动驾驶很难用代码实现？为什么特斯拉用纯视觉方案抛弃雷达？干货满满，技术小白也能听的懂的解说。我自己也是受益匪浅！ 欢迎在X上关注嘉宾 @raines1220 他在X上会经常分享很多FSD和特斯拉的硬核信息，也会经常参加我和老于组织的特斯拉投资者space。 时间轴： 00:00:00 嘉宾介绍 00:00:25 什么是自动驾驶和FSD，和辅助驾驶有何不同？ 00:01:02 自动驾驶和AI，Machine Learning的关系 00:01:57 自动驾驶为什么不能用代码实现？ 00:04:00 模拟能取代真实世界的数据训练实现自动驾驶吗？ 00:05:21 自动驾驶和AlphaGo和ChatGPT这类AI有什么相似与不同？ 00:08:58 感知融合vs纯视觉, 激光雷达 vs 摄像头，软件vs硬件 00:12:01 纯视觉是在牺牲安全性吗？ 00:18:47 纯视觉方案为什么还需要地图信息？ 00:20:59 什么是无图，自动驾驶为什么不用高精地图？
Some audiobook recommendations: The Story of Civilization by Durant Iliad (Penguin Edition) The Road to Serfdom by Hayek American Caesar by Manchester Masters of Doom by Kushner The Wages of Destruction by Tooze The Storm of Steel by Junger The Guns of August by Tuchman The Gallic Wars by Caesar Twelve Against the Gods by Bolitho Genghis Khan by Weatherford The first one on the list will take a while to get through, but is very much worthwhile. Admittedly, this is a list that appeals to those who think about Rome every day. I hope someone makes an audiobook of The Encyclopedia of Military History by Dupuy and The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World by Creasy.
Stalin: Court of the Red Czar by Montefiore (If you want some real nightmares)
This post confirms many of our previous guesses: 1. The reason for ‘lane dancing’ in v12.4 is that normal driving got ‘filtered out,’ leaving only object avoidance clips, making the model believe more lane changing is better. 2. The ultimate issue is an intelligence issue, because if you have more normal driving clips, then interventions increase. To have both increase without sacrificing the other, you need a larger model, which requires HW4. I cannot say how happy I am because it proves that our understanding of FSD is still valid and sound, and we can anticipate potential risks and solutions before Elon officially announces them. When we, the retail investors, compete with WS whales, we really need this edge to win.
Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov discusses how genAI is propelling Waymo’s autonomous vehicles to the next level, especially with an additional simulation layer on top of Waymo’s existing AI/ML stack. Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov joined a16z general partner David George to discuss how Waymo is using genAI to help them build safer, sustainable, and more accessible transportation. In the conversation, Dmitri talks about the potential of embodied AI, the value of simulations and building training data, and his approach to leading a company focused on solving the challenges of building AI that can navigate the real world. [00:01:22] The early days of autonomous vehicles [00:05:27] Layering genAI into traditional AI/ML [00:09:42] The value of simulation [00:15:56] The hard part about integrating AI in autonomous systems [00:22:45] AI in the real world [00:28:47] Where does Waymo go from here? [00:37:21] Dmitri’s learnings from hard problems This conversation is part of our AI Revolution series, which features some of the most impactful builders in the field of AI discussing and debating where we are, where we’re going, and the big open questions in AI. Find more content from our AI Revolution series on www.a16z.com/AIRevolution.
xAI founder Elon Musk has projected that Grok will emerge as the world’s leading AI system, drawing on real-time data from X (formerly Twitter), Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) cars, and Optimus robots in the future.
What Happened: As per Musk, the key to AI supremacy lies in having the most potent training compute and improving it at a faster rate than competitors. He compared the training compute to a Formula 1 car engine, highlighting its crucial role in the race for AI dominance.
Apart from real-time access to posts on X, Musk says xAI will also be able to leverage videos captured by Tesla cars and Optimus humanoid robots. He envisions billions of these robots to give xAI an unprecedented amount of data to feed into xAI and train Grok.
“I think with Tesla and the real-time video coming from several million cars, ultimately tens of millions of cars with Optimus, there might be hundreds of millions of Optimus robots, maybe billions, learning a tremendous amount from the real world,” Musk said on a recent episode of the Lex Fridman podcast.
- 07/31/2024 – Tesla Engineer Showcases First Cybertruck With Dry Cathode 4680 Cells Aimed At Reducing Costs (msn.com) – good news on 4680 cells!
- 07/31/2024 – Tilson’s view on TSLA – In summary, I would expect Musk and Tesla will face a lot of scrutiny for overpromoting the capabilities of FSD in a dangerously misleading way. But I still don’t think Tesla is a good short – or a good long. You don’t have to be a hero by staking out a position in this battleground stock – just sit back, watch, and learn.
as Anton says, the consequences could be big:
The WSJ would never publish something like this without asking Tesla for comment. So Musk knew this story was coming. Perhaps that’s why he sounded so defensive and uptight in his prepared remarks on last week’s earnings call. This has clearly been brewing for months, maybe more than a year. I can smell some form of indictment coming…
07/24/2024 A look at earnings reports from Alphabet and Tesla; Funny, scary deepfake | Stansberry Research
The Hidden Autopilot Data That Reveals Why Teslas Crash
Video and data gathered by the Wall Street Journal from over 200 Tesla Autopilot crashes reveals that longstanding concerns about Tesla’s camera-based technology, which differs from the rest of the industry, are showing up on the roads and putting the public at risk. Photo Illustration: Ryan Trefes
US opens formal probe into Tesla’s Autopilot technology | Financial Times (archive.ph)
“In keeping with the agency’s core safety mission and to better understand the causes of certain Tesla crashes, NHTSA is opening a preliminary evaluation into Tesla Autopilot systems and the technologies and methods used to monitor, assist and enforce the driver’s engagement with driving while Autopilot is in use,” the NHTSA said.
“Certain advanced driving assistance features can promote safety by helping drivers avoid crashes and mitigate the severity of crashes that occur, but as with all technologies and equipment on motor vehicles, drivers must use them correctly and responsibly.”
Missy Cummings, professor of engineering at Duke University, said the NHTSA probe highlighted a fundamental problem with Tesla’s technology. “The car’s vision system can’t handle anything out of the ordinary — and that by definition is every emergency situation.”
Consumer groups that have been critical of Tesla’s use of AI and called for tighter regulation welcomed the investigation. However, Cummings said that systems such as Tesla’s made judgments based on probabilities, posing a fundamental problem for regulators looking for assurances that the technology was safe.
The investigation covers most Tesla vehicles produced since 2014, including its Models Y, X, S and 3.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
How Hackers and Mechanics Unearth Tesla’s Hidden Autopilot Data (wsj.com)
Tesla’s History of Faking Demonstration Videos – The Dawn Project
Tesla-FSD-Safety-Analysis (dawnproject.com)
- 07/20/2024 – Squaring the Future of Elon Musk’s Tesla With Donald Trump’s EV Knocks – WSJ
- 07/19/2024 – Tesla Might Give Up On ‘Innovative’ 4680 Battery Cells (msn.com)
- 07/19/2024 – How a Trump presidency could ‘rock’ the EV market — and bring Tesla prices way down (msn.com)
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has endorsed Trump’s run for president, despite the Republican nominee’s position against climate-change solutions and a view from Wall Street that a Trump term would be bad for the EV market overall.
“I can be persuasive,” Musk said at a recent shareholder meeting. “I think he actually — a lot of his friends now have Teslas and they all love it. And he’s a huge fan of the Cybertruck. So I think those may be contributing factors, yeah.”
- 07/16/2024 – Tesla posts 800 job openings after biggest round of layoffs in company history (msn.com)
Tesla is reportedly seeking to hire around 800 new employees – just a few months after CEO Elon Musk reportedly slashed thousands of jobs in the company’s biggest-ever round of layoffs.
Hundreds of new roles have appeared on the Tesla website over the past few weeks, especially AI specialist and service roles, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
Musk posted on X that both Tesla and xAI, his latest AI startup company, “are looking to hire networking engineers & technicians.”
- 07/09/2024 – (1) Herbert Ong on X: “Something special is coming!! 👀 $TSLA 🚀” / X
- 07/09/2024 – (1) Michael Burry Stock Tracker ♟ on X: “What a day for Baidu shareholders Finishing the day off above 8% Recently the company deployed a fleet of 1000 driverless ‘robo taxis’ – the world’s largest autonomous vehicle experiment all using Baidu’s Apollo Go systems https://t.co/GMKItBH3Du” / X – competition on autonomous driving in China is heating up
What a day for Baidu shareholders
Finishing the day off above 8%
Recently the company deployed a fleet of 1000 driverless ‘robo taxis’ – the world’s largest autonomous vehicle experiment all using Baidu’s Apollo Go systems
- 07/09/2024 – interesting negative viewpoint of FSD training Tesla’s self-driving bias: Musk and influencers get priority in autonomous driving AI development (msn.com)
- Tesla gives special treatment to data from VIPs, including Elon Musk, when training its self-driving AI.
- Current and former staff say they were told to work on routes Musk drove as well as influencers.
- Experts say it means Tesla’s resources toward self-driving vehicles are being unevenly distributed.
- 07/09/2024 – amazing efforts and progress on AI development – (2) X Daily News on X: “NEWS: Elon Musk’s xAI and Oracle have ended talks on expanding their server rental agreement. • Talks broke down due to disagreements over timeline and power supply concerns. • xAI is now building its own AI data center in Memphis, Tennessee. • The potential deal was https://t.co/hNWJ9mUqEK” / X
NEWS: Elon Musk’s xAI and Oracle have ended talks on expanding their server rental agreement. • Talks broke down due to disagreements over timeline and power supply concerns. • xAI is now building its own AI data center in Memphis, Tennessee. • The potential deal was estimated to be worth $10 billion. • The company is purchasing Nvidia chips from Dell and Supermicro for this project. • xAI already rents about 16,000 Nvidia chips from Oracle, which will continue for now. • Elon plans to build a supercomputer with 100,000 Nvidia GPUs for training Grok 3.0. • Oracle has signed a deal with Microsoft to provide Nvidia-powered servers for OpenAI. • The Oracle-Microsoft deal involves 100,000 of Nvidia’s upcoming GB200 chips. • This arrangement is estimated to cost about $5 billion over two years. • The new chip cluster is expected to be ready by Q2 2025 and will be located in Abilene, Texas. Via theinformation.com/articles/musks
(2) X Daily News on X: “Elon adds https://t.co/vBth9kbCmk https://t.co/A8qtGMUpi3” / X
- 07/08/2024 – Tesla’s Biggest Risk Has Arrived. (youtube.com) good discussion on China’s competition – be aware of the US election outcome might damage the China-US relationship which might get Tsla out of China, this is big risk
- 07/08/2024 – (1) Cern Basher on X: “A new form of labor: Robots as a Service One day, in the not so distance future, you’ll be able to obtain robotic labor for any physical task you need. You’ll give the bot instructions by just talking to it and it will autonomously perform the work. You’ll surely want to benefit https://t.co/1DdqFwd2Dx” / X
One day, in the not so distance future, you’ll be able to obtain robotic labor for any physical task you need. You’ll give the bot instructions by just talking to it and it will autonomously perform the work. You’ll surely want to benefit from robotic labor, especially if it’s charged by the day or hour – making it accessible and affordable for everyone. Imagine having the option to rent a robot, allowing you to benefit from advanced robotic assistance without the need to own one. Whether you’re tackling home repairs, moving heavy items, or managing a large project, renting one or many robots could significantly ease the burden. While there are many tasks/jobs that will likely need a highly skilled professional (plumbing, tile work, etc) for a long time to come, all of these professionals could use a reliable robotic assistant on the job site. These professionals will be able to hire robots as needed, supplementing their expertise with versatile robotic labor. Whether you rent your bots from Home Depot, Lowes, or from an App, remains to be seen, but robotic labor and Robots as a Service is coming. Thank you
for the image!
The Relentless Pursuit of Improvement With this statement: “All that matters is improving Tesla self-driving AI such that miles between interventions is >> human” Elon is touching upon a two things that are critically important to understand. 1) Keep swimming: When building something that has never been built before, you just keep iterating – you keep focused on making it better and better. Especially when human lives are at stake – if you have a robotaxi service and your self-driving vehicle has an accident rate of 2 per million miles and your vehicle fleet is doing 500 million miles per year, then you’ve got 1,000 accidents (with some fatalities). That’s not good enough. If you can improve your self-driving system so that your accident rate is 0.2 per million miles, then you’ve got only 100 accidents – a 10x improvement. But what happens if your robotaxi service now scales up to 5 trillion miles per year and your accident rate is 0.2 per million, it yields 1,000 accidents. That’s too many – the lawyers will be too busy. So you need to drive down the accident rate to 0.02 per million miles (a 100x improvement) – now the number of accidents is down to 100 per year. At this rate, there would be something like a 4% chance of you ever being in a vehicle accident over your lifetime vs. about 75% today. Now do you see why Tesla needs to build out more and more AI compute? They need to keep swimming – the race is never over! 2) If such a continuous improvement in technology is achieved, then the lowest cost AND the safest form of transportation becomes robotaxi and the stock price takes care of itself.
- 07/07/2024 – (2) Elon Musk on X: “@GuyDealership False” / X
- 07/07/2024 – China Gives EV Automakers Grants, Incentives, Cheap Loans And Batteries, EU Report Finds (msn.com)
- The European Commission has published the detail report it used to determine the tariffs now applied to Chinese EVs in Europe from today.
- A breakdown of aid available from the Chinese state reveals that automakers benefit from grants, cheap loans, sales incentives and subsidised batteries.
- BYD was judged to receive less help than SAIC and faces a 17.4 percent tariff rather than 37.6 percent.
Here’s my first impressions of Tesla FSD v12.4.3 after driving it around for 2 hours around Austin. First off, this is based off just a few hours of testing and are my personal experience and thoughts. After more hours of testing, I’m sure I’ll have other and different thoughts. 1. v12.4.3 felt overall like a better build compared to v12.3.6 (which most people have). It drove smooth, confidently, and performed maneuvers a bit more confident compared to v12.3.6. 2. For example, turning right into oncoming traffic just seemed better. I’m not going to say it is crazy better, but I’d say it’s better. There’s still a lot of room to go where I think FSD needs to match the level of an average human in terms of the confidence and time it takes to take a right turn onto oncoming traffic, and v12.4.3 isn’t there yet. But it’s much improved. 3. Some of the quirks of v12.3.6 have been fixed. One example, is v12.3.6 would do this head-fake maneuver if there was a median and I needed to turn left at a stop light. It would edge into the median a few times back and forth before going in, and it was cool at first but strange. v12.4.3 handles the median prior to getting into right turn lane much better, just like a human (at least in my initial experiences). 4. It seemed to be able to choose the right lane to be in a bit better than v12.3.6. There was one place I frequently test where v 12.3.6 would get confused between a lane going straight and a lane turning right, but v12.4.3 recognized the correct lane to get into immediately. 5. The nag system in v12.4.3 is a bit too aggressive for my likes as sometimes I’m looking straight ahead but it tells me to pay attention. But nevertheless, it’s better than the old v12.3.6 system where it would give steering wheel nags. In v12.4.3 you just need to keep your eyes looking forward to remove the nag. 6. v12.4.3 is not perfect and that’s not what I think we should expect from it. It still has its weaknesses. On a right turn with a red right arrow, it was a bit confused and went back and forth on whether to go or not. In a parking lot I was trying to get out of, it went into a dead end. But overall, there’s something about v12.4.3 that just made the 2 hours of driving much better than v12.3.6 for me. It felt like an upgraded driver – more confident, less hesitant. I didn’t need to press/tap the accelerator as often. I just let it do its thing. 7. FSD v12.4.1. and v12.4.2 had its quirks and it was understandable why those versions never went to wide release. Mainly there was a hesitancy/cautiousness that was excessive in certain situations, and some behavior that with sometimes odd. Not necessarily unsafe, just a big odd. But v12.4.3 (in my limited testing) was leaps and bounds better in this regard. 8. At the end of the ride, my reaction was “Wow! That was an amazing drive!” Probably the best FSD drive I’ve ever taken. And it’s exciting because if my limited experience and takeaway is correct then I think this is a significant, and a very significant, improvement from v12.3.6. It’s exciting to see Tesla continue to make improvements and deliver.
Peter Thiel on Elon Musk
“You know, when Elon was building both Tesla and SpaceX in the 2000s, people thought he was just really, really crazy. I think even those of us who had worked with him at PayPal, I mean, there’s this PayPal book that David Sacks and I thought of writing, and the Elon chapter was titled something like, “The Man Who Knew Nothing About Risk.” There are all these crazy Elon stories I could tell… If one of the two companies had succeeded, you would say, “Well, maybe he still got really lucky,” but when two out of two companies that people thought were completely harebrained in the 2000s, when they both succeed, man, you have to somehow reassess it, and somehow, the rest of us, somehow, are too risk averse, or there’s something about risk he knows that we don’t, or something like this.”
- 07/05/2024 – (1) TESLA BULL on X: “$TSLA #TSLA = $550 CALLS! GAME OVER! https://t.co/MwqBBelFER” / X
Following the Jiangsu provincial government’s purchase of #Tesla cars, the Shanghai municipal government has also begun purchasing Tesla cars Shanghai City Investment Xingang Group, Lingang Investment and Control Group and other state-owned enterprises have taken the lead in purchasing a number of Tesla Model Y vehicles for corporate functions.
NEWS: Tesla showcased its second-generation Optimus humanoid robot at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Thursday, making it one of the few American AI products seen at China’s top AI show. “The single Optimus shown at the Shanghai event attracted a lot of attention.” Source: scmp.com/tech/tech-tren
- 07/04/2024 – Elon Musk Interview on the Future Cannes Lions & Gets Confronted In Interview But FIRES Back! (youtube.com)
he most successful company is the one use ai the most
Elon Musk seems to have a rosier outlook on AI right now (msn.com)
He told an audience member: “This is the most interesting time in all of history. So, enjoy the ride.”
- 07/04/2024 – an interesting summary of TSLA’s history
Tesla: A Tech Company Disguised As An Automaker (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha
Tesla is ‘cloning’ Amazon + Apple extremely successful strategies and much more.,Amazon Strategies that I know of:- Amazon started as an online bookstore in late 1990s;
– selling products below costs using Cash Burn Strategy;
– in order to capture market shares from established retailers;
– then expanded toward numerous different retail products in 2000s;
– delivering products free of shipment costs in the 2010s;- monopolized the Online Retail Business (> 50% market share);- then, using FCFs from retail sales;
– to develop the software AWS for in-house applications in late 2000s;
– then monetized the extremely profitable AWS in early 2010s;- AMZN became the #1 SaaS company in late 2010s;
– AMZN became the most profitable and best performing co. in late 2010s.Apple Strategies that I know of:- borrow $500mm from Bill Gates to avoid going bk’ed in 1997;
– use the $500mm to ‘copy’ Walkman using digital technology iPod;
– iPod became the best seller ousting Walkman;- monopolized the Portable Digital Audio Market (> 50% market share);- then, using FCFs from iPod sales;
– developed iPhone using advanced technologies;
– iPhone became the best selling smartphone in early 2010s;- iPhone monopolized the high-end Smartphone Market (> 50% market share);- AAPL synergyzed hardware and Cloud/SaaS products into an Ecosystem;
– AAPL became the most profitable and best performing co. in early 2010s.Tesla Strategies that I know of:- re-invent BEVs using most modern mechanical/electric/digital technologies;
– TSLA became the first online Car Dealership in the USA;
– selling BEVs below costs using Cash Burn Strategy in early stages;
– to capture market shares from established car manufacturers;
– use the FCFs to develop the ‘S3XY’ Tesla electric cars;- monopolized the BEV Market in 2010s to early 2020s;- then expanded Giga-factories to China, Germany, etc.;
– then expanded into Charging Stations across the country and abroad;
– then expanded into Tesla Car Dealerships across the world;
– then expanded into Tesla Repair Shops across the world;
– then expanded into Electric Batteries for Tesla cars;
– then expanded into Car Insurance Business;
– then expanded into Car Computers (CPUs, GPUs, motherboards and O/S);- then expanded into Solar + Energy Storage Facilities;- then expanded in AI Strategy i.e. Dojo supercomputer;
– then expanded into Autonomous Driving Software i.e. FSD;
– then expanded into Robotics i.e. Optimus.- Elon Musk is turning TSLA into a highly Comprehensive Ecosystem;
– possibly far bigger/more comprehensive than AMZN and APPL combined.I think Tesla can become the ‘Terrell Corporation’ of the future due to highly ‘monopolistic’ strategies being implemented by Elon Musk using Ecosystem strategy that made AAPL an extremely profitable company.And by being the CEO of X – formerly Twitter – he can ‘influence’ millions to billions of people across the world including global leaders and other X-influencers.And by being the CEO of SpaceX and StarLink keeps improving Tesla with the help of cutting-edge technologies being developed and applied to space travel and/or exploration, including global communications and possibly futuristic intergalactic communications. Including perhaps the Boring Company which by now should have enough technical know-how to make habitats beneath the moon’s surface feasible – if needed.And by being the CEO of newly founded X-AI that specialized in LLMs and possibly AGI; Tesla’s FSD + LLM’s Use Cases for cars/trucks/trailers can become much more ‘useful’ with comprehensive practical applications other than being the primary means of transportation for possibly hundreds of millions, to billions, of people across the world.,If TSLA + X-AI succeeded in becoming the largest AI Supercomputers within the next few years; then Elon Musk could become the very first CEO to finally make AGI a reality (www.livescience.com/…).Therefore:TSLA = first and foremost contender for ‘Terrell Corporation’ Crown of the future. Thus Tesla can become the biggest AI Robotics company w/ touted $25T market cap envisioned by Musk.And if X-AI succeeds with AGI; then X-AI together with TSLA’s manufacturing prowess + SpaceX can also develop the so-called Interstellar ARC and/or ‘Wall-E’ optionality for human survival into the far future if, and only IF, Musk’s most feared vision of AGI being ‘abused’ by other AI developers comes true re: Skynet Scenario.Elon Musk = the one and only pro-active CEO most involved in developing technologies for smart robots and space travel/exploration + habitats needed for the survival of human specie into the far future – in case the most dreaded ‘Nuclear Holocaust’ scenario actually happens. And if his TSLA’s $25T-company vision comes true, be among the most capable of helping mankind prepare for the (inevitable) AGI dominance of the future.For better or for worse – GLTA.
- 07/04/2024 – (1) Sawyer Merritt on X: “NEWS: For the first time ever, the Tesla Cybertruck was the #1 bestselling electric pickup truck in America in Q2, outselling the Ford F-150 Lightning. Congrats @Tesla! https://t.co/Ke8hMp9HDu” / X
- 07/03/2024 – lessons learned on options trading, great advices!!!!!!!!
before logging off for the night, i want to share one thought about $TSLA this came up during a call i just had with a student regarding options. the real breakout will last for several, several months. the goal is to not fuck this up.
you fuck it up by being too hasty, too greedy, going heavily too fast. you fuck it up by selling too fast, then feeling bad, and FOMO’ing heavily back in. even if you make a profit, you fucked up — because you of the risks you’re taking without much thought. one day it will catch you, and it will be the end.
you do not need to make all the gains right away. you need to have the perspective of abundance — that there will be hundreds of future trades that will do extremely well. you do not need to add unnecessary pressure to yourself at this point in time, otherwise you are bound to fail.
this is a multi-month, or, more likely, perhaps even a multi-year breakout. in this point in time, the goal is to survive, and to play the long game. there is a shit ton of money at stakes. meditate right now on what your personal framework & process will be to handle what is to come. let’s discuss more during Spaces and try to learn from each other along the way gn soldiers
Tesla is already making 74 million “bot equivalents” As of the end of Q2, 2024, over the last 12 months, Tesla delivered about 170 GWh of energy –> 150 GWh in Autos and another 20 GWh of battery storage products. Since Tesla will one day primarily be a bot company, that’s about 74 million bot equivalents (each bot has a 2.3 KWh battery pack).
If each bot makes $3,000 per year in profit (under a Robots as a Service business model), that’s about $222 billion in annual profit. If each bot makes $10,000 per year in profit, that’s about $740 billion in annual recurring profit. Apply a 30x P/E multiple to that and you’re … well, you do the math.
- 07/03/2024 – (2) Tesla Investors See New Growth Phase / X
Tom Zhu, Tesla’s Senior Vice President of Automotive, is returning to China as part of a strategic move by the company[1][2]. This decision comes amid challenges Tesla is facing in the highly competitive Chinese electric vehicle market[1]. Zhu, who previously led Tesla’s entry into China and oversaw Asia Pacific operations, was promoted to his current role in April 2023, managing global production, sales, deliveries, service, and factories from Tesla’s Austin headquarters[1][2]. His return to China coincides with a decline in deliveries from Tesla’s Shanghai factory, which dropped 18% in April 2023 compared to the previous year[1]. The move is seen as an effort to regain traction in the Chinese market, where Tesla faces intense competition from established players like BYD and newcomers such as Xiaomi[1]. It also follows Elon Musk’s recent visit to Beijing, where he secured in-principle approval for deploying Tesla’s driver-assistance system in China[1]. This strategic shift occurs amidst a broader restructuring at Tesla, including significant layoffs and the departure of several key executives[1][5]. Zhu’s reassignment is expected to play a crucial role in Tesla’s expansion plans in China, particularly with the potential rollout of its Full Self-Driving software in the Chinese market[5]. Citations: [1] fortune.com/asia/2024/05/0 [2] economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internati [3] ir.tesla.com/corporate/tom- [4] scmp.com/news/world/uni [5] tesery.com/blogs/news/tes
Tesla will display the “Gen2 Humanoid Robot Optimus” at the Pudong World Expo Exhibition Hall in Shanghai, China. • Period: 4-7 July • Location: EXPO Exhibition Hall H1-B108 booth
Anyone short $TSLA needs to have their head examined. – EVs are a great business (15% EV adoption today, going to 60% by 2030). – TSLA will launch a $25K vehicle in 2025, significantly expanding its TAM. – TSLA will solve generalized autonomy first, worth potentially $5T. – TSLA will use all its learnings from Robotaxi to launch Optimus robots which could by itself be worth $20-$25T market cap. Autonomous vehicles: 100M vehicles market x 10% share = 10M veh/year x $50K price, $30K cost = $200B profit/year x 25x P/E = $5T value Optimus: Market demand for robots 1 billion per year, TSLA captures 10% market share, Price $20K per robot, Cost $10K per robot, $1T profits (100M x $10K each), 20-25x multiple = $20-$25T value
Ark Invest reduced its stake in Tesla across two of its ETFs — ARK Innovation ETF (NYSE:ARKK) and ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (NYSE:ARKW). The firm sold 56,425 and 6,442 shares respectively, the transaction was valued at $14.54 million. On Tuesday, Tesla shares closed 10.2% higher at $231.26, driven higher by the second-quarter delivery report of the company. The numbers came ahead of the consensus estimate.
On the same day, Ark Invest, through its ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (BATS:ARKQ), purchased 37,053 shares of Palantir worth $957,078.
This investment comes as the AI sector gains momentum, with Palantir being described as the “Messi of AI,” and “probably the most underestimated AI play, maybe tech play, in the market today” by Dan Ives, the managing director at Wedbush.
Notably, Ark Invest picked up Palantir shares worth $5.16 million just a day earlier
- 07/02/2024 – (1) Eva Fo𝕏 🦊 Claudius Nero’s Legion on X: “Tesla Receives License to Test FSD in China” / X
Tesla has received the first license to test its Full Self-Driving (FSD) in China. The company is now allowed to test its software on the roads of Nanhui New Town in Shanghai.
Tesla may conduct testing using up to ten vehicles, local media reported, citing local officials. With this test license, the company has taken an important step toward promoting its product in the world’s largest automotive market. China is also the market where Tesla will face its fiercest competition.
According to other media reports, Tesla will also test FSD in Hangzhou, a city of millions of people, in the near future. However, official confirmation of these reports has not yet been received.
- 07/02/2024 – interesting background on Travis and Elon (Uber and Tsla)
The day before, Musk followed Travis Kalanick, the co-founder and former CEO of Uber, on X, which sent shares up more than 4 percent. The two had once discussed a robotaxi venture, and even though it didn’t go well, and even though Tesla didn’t mention self-driving or autonomous vehicles on its earnings call, Wall Street chose to interpret a potential Musk-Kalanick collab in a certain way. “The real story here for investors is on the technology front, with both the humanoid robot and the Robotaxi stories developing at an exciting pace,” Thomas Monteiro, a senior analyst at Investing.com, wrote in an investor note. “Both, particularly when combined, have the potential to become absolute game-changers for the company’s margins, leading to the type of sales Tesla shareholders expect.”
Elon Musk Is Having It Both Ways (msn.com)
Travis Kalanick Says Elon Musk Tried to Trick Him into Making a Huge Mistake | Vanity Fair
How Elon Musk’s New “Master Plan” Could Be Trouble for Uber | Vanity Fair
Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas in new $TSLA note: 1st Positive Surprise of the Year “A ‘show stealer’ from today’s update is the all-time record high stationary storage number (9.4 GWh) for 2Q which is nearly 2x our forecast. As Gen AI acceleration spurs a multigenerational increase in energy demand, electricity generation, and data center investment, we believe investors will begin to pay more attention to Tesla Energy.”
- 07/02/2024 – Herbert Ong on X: “$TSLA 🚀” / X
- 07/02/2024 – (1) Michael Dell on X: “It works beautifully 👏🏆” / X
praise of FSD from Michael Dell
Again, adding some color for the fans –
@MichaelDell showed off the racks he sold to X in a tweet last week. His racks are pretty lame compared to these. –
@charlesliang (welcome to X!) pictured left is a true silicon valley legend, since 1993 founder-ceo of $SMCI (up 4200% in past 5y). Similar to other founders (jensen, elon) he is highly technical and knows *everything* about his business. (He also has a non-profit for planting trees, my wife thanks you for the shade.) – Pictured is the liquid cooled, 4U/server, 64 GPU/rack (H200?) rack-level solution from SMC. Super compact. The unit in bottom is their hot-swappable pump system that delivers cooling to the cold plates of the cpus/gpus. – There is a high correlation between gpu stability/reliability and temperature, esp its memory, so liquid cooling keeps the temps lower. There’s still half a dozen system fans in there though.
Just finished a one-week trip to China. I’ve now “survived” all the major (~20) L2 self-driving and robotaxi vehicles in both the US and China. Some thoughts & observations:
L2 self-driving
I tested major brands like $Huawei, $Li, $NIO, $Xpeng, and $Xiaomi. Overall, they exceeded my expectations. The rides were not overly cautious and handled complex situations (yes, road conditions in China are very challenging!) quite well. Nothing compares to $Tsla‘s approach. I see imitation learning/end-to-end as the only effective approach for self-driving. While Chinese peers perform well on main roads, they struggle on frontage roads due to reliance on high-precision maps and rule-based methods (e.g. cars stopped in the middle of the road where there was no clear white lining). Chinese EVs’ self-driving capabilities are far ahead of those from US and EU brands. I doubt any Chinese players can profit from L2 self-driving, not because it’s not useful, but because it’s hard to differentiate, and price wars dominate the market in China. Chinese consumers and regulators seem much more receptive to self-driving. Even with a 5/10 self-driving capability, cars are practically *hands-free(!)* Insurance-wise, for L3+ cars, OEMs bear responsibility for incidents, so OEMs avoid labeling cars as L3+.
Robotaxi
I tested major brands like Pony.ai, $Didi, and $Bidu. I’d rate Pony.ai equal to $Waymo, and it’s ahead of other peers. However, the same issue applies here: user experience is nearly perfect (in Yizhuang, Beijing), but expansion is the real question. Chinese robotaxi companies are very sophisticated. While the rest of the world focuses on technology, Chinese peers treat it as a product, considering unit economics, operations, mass production, etc. Interestingly, most companies expressed a preference NOT to operate fleets themselves. They aim to be asset-light and let fleet managers handle operations. Policy Support: China has a very clear approval process, driven by data (autonomous driving distance, fully driverless distance, intervention rate, passenger ratings, etc.).
Chinese EVs
In major cities like Beijing or Shanghai, EV adoption (green license plates vs. gas cars with blue license plates) seems to be 40%+. If 40% of cars on the road are EVs, then EV penetration (defined as the % of new car sales) must already be over 50%. In shopping malls, the ground floor is filled with EV showrooms—easily 10+ brands, many of which are unfamiliar Chinese brands. It appears almost too easy to make an electric car, which is a stark contrast to the US. $Xiaomi, for example, can achieve a 10% gross profit margin in its first year of operation, compared to $RIVN‘s -45%. Additionally, $Xiaomi cars are priced at 30% of $RIVN‘s price. It’s fascinating to see how China transitioned from “couldn’t make their own gas cars at all (only JVs)” to “dominating EVs globally.” The government deserves credit for setting the direction and executing effectively. China now controls the entire supply chain, with $CATL holding 40% of the global market share.
How did it happen?
The success of the industry Incentives were set just right: the government provided incentives early on to make EVs and gas cars have comparable MSRPs, allowing consumers to choose based on functionality. This approach differs from how the IRA offers incentives…
Perfectly competitive market: $TSLA was brought in, and competition was welcomed, unlike the US, which has a 100% import tax on Chinese EVs. Strategic regulations: License plate restrictions were used effectively; for example, taxis and minivans are required to be EVs.
The challenges
Despite the success, the industry faces challenges with low-margin companies and struggling stocks. The intense competition shows no sign of ending. Well-funded global OEMs and Chinese state-owned car companies continue to subsidize, leading to new EV brands emerging annually. The natural tendency in China is to race to the bottom. I think this ties back to China’s history as the “world’s factory,” where manufacturers price products at “cost plus” versus the US and developing countries, which price based on “affordability/value creation.“
The wow EV feature
Software features that surprised me the most: – Everything in the car can be voice-controlled. Not just simple tasks like playing music; users can adjust the height of the steering wheel and set the temperature easily. – Self-parking, which $Tsla has yet to release to all FSD users, is already a table stake in China (I’d rate the quality as 10/10).
>Other fun hardware features: – Mini fridges in the car – Infotainment systems – IoT: remote access the car/home via cellphone – all connected together – Heads-up displays – UV-protected glass roofs: $Xiaomi took $Tsla‘s design, but the glass roof of the $Xiaomi car is made of double layers with silver, blocking 99.9% of UV and infrared rays…as a result, heat is no longer a problem inside the car
- 07/01/2024 – Elon Musk reveals how many Nvidia H100 chips his AI chatbot will be trained on (msn.com)
Training based on 100,000 GPUs would be a big step up from Grok 2. Musk said in an interview in April with the head of Norway’s sovereign fund Nicolai Tangen that Grok 2 would take around 20,000 H100s to train.
100,000 GPUs sounds like a lot — and it is. But other tech giants like Meta are stacking up on even more GPUs. Mark Zuckerberg said in January that Meta will have purchased about 350,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs by the end of 2024. He also said Meta will own about 600,000 chips including other GPUs.
If that’s the case, Meta will have spent about $18 billion building its AI capabilities.
The stockpiling of H100 chips has also contributed to how ruthless hiring top AI talent has become in the last year.
- 06/30/2024 – (1) Sawyer Merritt on X: “Tesla is expected to announce their Q2 delivery numbers this Tuesday between 8AM-9AM ET. Tesla is also expected to share how much energy storage they deployed during the quarter. The company deployed 4,053 MWh in Q1, an all-time record high.” / X
- 06/30/2024 – (2) Pejjy on X: “I finally got to upload this awesome podcast with @CernBasher! Cern explains & breaks down how the $TSLA BOT business is bigger than #Robotaxi business. The numbers get VERY NUTTY! Timestamps: 00:00 Intro: Getting To Know Cern Basher 5:39 #Robotaxis 40:18 $TSLA BOTS https://t.co/2Jqa8gdzkG” / X
in-depth study of Robotaxi and Bot businesses
Figure AI is a private company, so it does not have a public stock price or stock symbol1. However, accredited investors can buy its shares directly from existing shareholders through a marketplace called Hiive1. The most recent funding round in February 2024 was completed at $13.22 per share2.
Must watch Jim’s interview at NBC
• Elon Musk confirmed a new FSD version 12.4 is in testing, focusing on safety and ride comfort. The release of FSD 12.4 to the public was delayed, affecting updates like versions 12.5 and 12.6. • Cruise, a robotaxi company, hired Marc Whitten as CEO and revamped its executive team after some issues. • Tesla is building a huge GPU data center at Giga Texas with cool new cooling systems to save power. The data center will be between 600,000 to 800,000 square feet, making it one of North America’s largest buildings.
Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE:TM) is reportedly set to introduce its first electric vehicle featuring an advanced autonomous driving system in China next year.
The initiative aims to bolster the Japanese automaker’s market share in China by advancing in hybrid, battery, and intelligent vehicle technologies.
- 06/26/2024 – Battle for the streets: Tesla’s self-driving tech challenges China’s home-grown heroes (msn.com)
China’s autonomous driving landscape consists of two types of players. One group, which includes EV makers like Xpeng and Li Auto and DeepRoute.ai, a tech startup, adopts a technical approach similar to Tesla’s E2E.
They use AI models to process data and directly generate control commands, enabling vehicles to recognize road conditions and pilot themselves. However, unlike Tesla’s camera-based visual solution, Xpeng and Li Auto also equip their cars with lidars, millimeter-wave radars, and cameras to collect data.
The other approach relies on multi-sensor fusion perception technology, with Huawei as a major proponent. Huawei’s autonomous driving system ADS2.0, available in car models like AITO M7 and M9, integrates lidars, millimeter-wave radars, and cameras to enhance perception.
It allows L4 autonomy with low highway takeover rates and includes features like autonomous valet parking.
Huawei bets big on multi-sensor fusion perception because it believes that camera, millimeter-wave radar, and lidar have their shortcomings, making integration necessary.
Tesla itself faces significant hurdles. Musk has lobbied painstakingly to get FSD licensed in China. For FSD to thrive, however, two core issues must be resolved: obtaining geographic data on public roads and ensuring data security compliance.
The first one is easier to fix. Chinese laws require overseas carmakers to work with certified Chinese companies to acquire a mapping license for developing autonomous driving technologies.
Tesla recently solved this by partnering with Baidu to obtain a license and gain access to Baidu’s lane-level navigation system.
The data compliance challenge proves more thorny. In a positive development, an official document indicated early this year that all models produced by Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory comply with regulatory requirements in human face and cockpit data collection, storage, and processing.
This finding addressed data security concerns, allowing Tesla cars to enter previously restricted areas like government compounds.
Subsequent reports by international media, such as Reuters, suggest Tesla plans to establish a data center in China to process and train autonomous driving algorithms locally.
This represents a departure from Musk’s earlier stance. Previously, he insisted data collected in China be sent to the US to be processed by its Dojo supercomputer. This is normally how Tesla improves upon its E2E capabilities.
However, this practice is incompatible with China’s national data security law, which has strict requirements for cross-border data flow.
Bloomberg reported that Musk had implored Beijing on a whirlwind trip to China in late April for permission to transfer Tesla’s China-specific data to the stateside, to no avail. Hence, the alternative is to build a data center.
The question is how to obtain the crucial AI chips. Industry insiders told me that Nvidia’s GPU Orin X is a chip of choice for many domestic carmakers and suppliers working on intelligent driving.
One thing is for sure, though. Musk cannot expect the Biden administration to make an exception for Tesla China to import advanced chips from the US.
Which brings me back to what I said earlier. In the short term, Tesla’s FSD is unlikely to crush domestic opponents due to insufficient computing power.
From the regulator’s perspective, Beijing has welcomed Tesla’s FSD entry. Chinese policymakers are known for long-term thinking and should be credited with this.
By allowing FSD into China this time, Beijing appears to be playing its card of “calculated cannibalism” again, using FSD to stimulate competition and drive excellence at home.
Manufacturing prowess and supply strengths still matter, but they alone will not ensure China’s lead in the global EV race. In the new era of autonomous driving, success hinges upon a closer integration of industries like integrated circuits, big data, and AI.
And who else is in a better place than Tesla to help Chinese car companies grow faster and elevate their game?
If things go as planned, Beijing’s latest maneuvers could play out the same way as is often touted in its “win-win” strategy: With Tesla reaping big gains from its FSD business in China, domestic automakers and suppliers are also poised to consolidate their advantages, further outpacing European and Japanese rivals in the autonomous driving race.
Tesla trick: Elon Musk’s plan to train AI in China takes shape (interestingengineering.com) To improve its self-driving technology, Tesla plans to build a data center in China. This center will let Tesla use data from its electric cars in China to train its self-driving systems. This is a big shift from Tesla’s old strategy of sending data out of China for its “Full Self Driving” (FSD) system, as per the report.
Shaping the future of autonomous driving
China, with its status as the world’s largest car market and its vast fleet of sensor-equipped vehicles, provides an ideal environment for Tesla’s data-driven approach. Musk’s plan to use Chinese data to train algorithms aligns with the country’s ambitions to lead in autonomous driving technologies.
Analysts view China as a potential launchpad for self-driving technology, similar to Tesla’s success with its Shanghai Gigafactory. Musk believes Tesla’s Full Self Driving system can adapt well globally, but benefits from country-specific training.
“It would definitely be a milestone for Tesla if it rolls out FSD in China and leverages the China data for algorithm training,” said Yale Zhang of Shanghai-based consultancy Automotive Foresightm, as quoted in the report.
05/30/2024 – Exclusive: Tesla makes push to roll out advanced FSD self-driving in China | Reuters
May 30 (Reuters) – Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab is preparing to register its ‘Full Self-Driving’ software with authorities in China in the run up to its planned rollout of the technologically advanced feature this year, three people with knowledge of the matter said.
The U.S. electric vehicle maker is also considering selling the software as a monthly subscription to users of its cars in China, its second-largest market, they said.
Tesla would be joining at least 10 automakers and suppliers including Huawei (HWT.UL) and Xpeng (9868.HK), opens new tab in offering so-called level-two autonomous driving capabilities in China.
And while Tesla will be charging for FSD, Li Auto (2015.HK), opens new tab and Xpeng have offered equivalent driving systems for free on high-end variants of their models, while other automakers such as Nio (9866.HK), opens new tab have offered buyers a trial period without charge.
Huawei and Xpeng also said recently that they had started end-to-end AI model development for autonomous driving that would follow Tesla’s lead.
While Tesla’s rivals can develop algorithms needed to compete with its approach to FSD, it will be challenging for them to catch the U.S. company on the data and the computing power development needs, said Yin Chengliang, professor at the Institute of Intelligent Vehicle of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Tesla uses a supercomputer it calls Dojo to train the FSD system using video clips from millions of Tesla EVs. That connected network of vehicles, the world’s largest fleet, and the ability to process the data it generates give it a major advantage over any rival, Yin said.
• Tesla’s sales in China for the latest week of 2024 have been the highest this year, totaling 17,500 units, a 14% increase over the previous quarter. • Elon Musk announced at the shareholder meeting that FSD can now be transferred to new vehicle purchases until August 31, stacking with existing incentives. • XPeng Motors CEO praises Tesla’s FSD, predicting it could achieve full autonomy by 2025. • Tesla plans to hire for its Tesla Bot project, aiming to scale up to 1,000 to 2,000 bots next year, with a recent job posting for a project manager indicating readiness for launch. • Elon Musk responded to investor Ron Baron’s prediction on Tesla stock, discussing future growth prospects and strategies.
- 06/14/2024 – 2024 Tesla Shareholder Meeting (1) ELON DOCS on X: “Here’s the full breakdown of Elon’s presentation, including Q&A session, at the 2024 Tesla Shareholder Meeting earlier today. INTRODUCTION 1:36 FSD improving exponentially 4:04 How robotaxi will work 7:08 Autonomy could add $5 trillion value 8:37 Optimus could add $20 trillion https://t.co/ngUJDuVL00” / X
Here’s the full breakdown of Elon’s presentation, including Q&A session, at the 2024 Tesla Shareholder Meeting earlier today
INTRODUCTION
1:36 FSD improving exponentially 4:04 How robotaxi will work 7:08 Autonomy could add $5 trillion value 8:37 Optimus could add $20 trillion value
PRESENTATION 12:54 Tesla’s impact accelerating 15:38 6 millionth vehicle 16:48 Cybertruck 19:11 Updated Model 3 20:02 Model Y bestselling car 20:39 Tesla Semi starting volume prod 22:44 Future products 23:22 Supercharger network 25:44 4680 battery cell production 28:08 Huge energy storage growth 30:39 Software at Tesla 31:56 Real-world AI 32:42 Chips: HW3, HW4, Optimus 37:31: AWS-type opportunity 39:21 FSD getting extremely good 43:50 Optimus progress & perspectives
Q&A 51:08 A thanks to Elon 52:28 Regular free trials for FSD 54:10 Disneyland & statistical FSD risk 56:57 Tesla valuation: 10X by 2029 58:07 Referral program 1:00:37 FSD transfers one more quarter 1:02:03 Elon’s well-being & security 1:05:08 HVAC for homes 1:06:29 Factory tour for kids 1:08:07 Donald Trump fan of Cybertruck 1:09:24 Interventions for unsupervised FSD 1:10:54 Shoutout to@TeslaBoomerMama 1:11:33 Batteries only fraction of car price 1:15:35 Cybertruck could go international next year 1:19:09 Cybertruck Foundation series 1:19:45 Data collection & compute 1:26:47 Optimus to be equipped with LLMs 1:28:17 Optimus will be generalized 1:31:22 Elon helps accelerate Tesla 1:33:49 Parking & charging close to Starbase 1:35:28 Lithium refining 1:38:03 Suggestion: Deliver Teslas at night
- 06/25/2024 – (1) Whole Mars Catalog on X: “On April 17 2024 there were 3,878 Cybertrucks On June 19 2024 there were 11,688 Cybertrucks So 7,810 Cybertrucks delivered in 9 weeks So an average of 867 Cybertruck deliveries a week over the last two months that’s about 11k a quarter extrapolated out… enough to outsell https://t.co/q3IIUt4IGo” / X
- 06/25/2024 – Tesla Adds Mercedes-Benz To Supercharger Network Waitlist, Adjusts Timelines For Rival EV Makers (msn.com)
- 06/25/2024 – (1) Matt Smith on X: “Wow, very solid numbers from Tesla China released this morning!” / X
- 06/25/2024 – Canada to consider surtax on Chinese electric vehicles (msn.com)
- 06/25/2024 – Tesla Opens Up FSD Transfers Yet Again: Here’s How Long You Have To Save Up To $8,000 (msn.com)
No Longer A One-Time Amnesty: In 2023, several Tesla owners raised requests that the company allow for transferring FSD software from their old Teslas to their new ones, citing its high cost. Company CEO Elon Musk acknowledged the requests and in July allowed for transferring it as a “one-time amnesty.” The offer ended in the third quarter.
Since then, Tesla has time and again offered free FSD transfers. The company has also brought down the price of the technology significantly. It was priced at as much as $15,000 last year.
Why It Matters: Tesla has been trying to boost FSD takers in the past few months with incentives including a 30-day free trial of the software for vehicle owners who did not purchase it.
The move is aimed at demonstrating the abilities of the software which the company says will enable fully autonomous driving in due time.
Musk is now relying on vehicle autonomy to be the next big boost for the company amid dwindling EV deliveries and falling share value. As per Musk, doubling down on autonomy is a “blindingly obvious move” for the company with everything else like “variations on a horse carriage.”
- 06/24/2024 – (1) Pejjy on X: “CEO of $UBER sells 50% of his shares… He knows what’s about to happen 👀 $TSLA” / X
- 06/21/2024 – Q3 Oct 16, 2024 (Gift Montage (:15 seconds) (youtube.com) Big money is loading up on Tesla Stock calls)
- 06/21/2024 – CEO Says Ford is ‘Getting Close’ to Level 3 Autonomous Driving with ‘Hands and Eyes Off’ – EconoTimes
Ford CEO Jim Farley announced the company’s progress towards achieving Level 3 autonomous driving, allowing for hands-free and eyes-off-the-road operation, during a recent interview with Bloomberg TV.
Ford CEO Jim Farley Announces Progress Toward Level 3 Autonomous Driving, Enabling Hands-Free and Eyes-Off Operation
In a recent interview (via Electrek), Ford CEO Jim Farley addressed the American automaker’s advancements in autonomous driving. He announced that the company had achieved Level 3 autonomy, allowing drivers to remove their hands from the wheel and their eyes from the road. However, it will be some time before Ford customers can experience it.
If I had to guess, I would assume that the three vehicles are the Tesla Cybercab, the Model 2 (or whatever the cheap car ends up being called), and the long-awaited Tesla Roadster.
- 06/19/2024 – Elon Musk on X: “@WholeMarsBlog Then HW5, which has been renamed to AI5, in the second half of next year. The Tesla AI5 computer has ~10X the capability of HW4 computer and Tesla makes the whole software stack.” / X
- 06/17/2024 – Elon Musk and the SEC Are on a Collision Course Again – WSJ
- 06/13/2024 – Elon Musk wins Tesla shareholder battle to keep his record-breaking pay (yahoo.com)
But Thursday’s results may not spell the end of the corporate governance drama at Tesla.
For one, shareholders unhappy with the result could challenge its legality before the same Delaware court that voided Musk’s pay earlier this year.
One shareholder already filed a lawsuit last week in that state challenging both Tesla’s pay and redomestication proposals, alleging that Musk used “strong-arm, coercive tactics” in his efforts to persuade shareholders to ratify the proposals.
“It is likely Tesla will end up back in Delaware courts defending the package against lawsuits,” Jerry Comizio, a business law professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, told Yahoo Finance.
Comizio said shareholders might claim that the process leading to Thursday’s vote suffered from the same type of disclosure, corporate governance, and fiduciary duty deficiencies that caused a Delaware judge to invalidate the 2018 vote.
That judge, Kathaleen McCormick, ruled that Tesla’s board didn’t act “in the best interests” of Tesla shareholders in approving the $56 billion deal.
The central thrust of McCormick’s decision, according to Case Western Reserve University School of Law corporate law professor Anat Alon-Beck, was that Tesla’s board did not follow proper procedures and disclosures, or address numerous conflicts of interest with Musk.
“They always had the opportunity to do so, but chose not to,” Alon-Beck said. “Instead, they materially failed to comply with disclosure obligations to shareholders that have been central tenants of Delaware law for decades.”
But corporate compensation and governance attorney Bob Lamb said it’s possible the company disclosed enough this time around to insulate itself from added litigation.
“[Y]ou can’t disclose everything,” Lamm said. “At some point, the court’s got to say: ‘Tesla, you’ve done your job.'”
- 06/13/2024 – Unsold Teslas pile up in EV graveyard as Elon Musk’s financial woes deepen (msn.com)
- 06/13/2024 – Chinese Tesla Bots Are HERE! | Watch (msn.com)
Chinese companies are chasing Tesla on humanoid robot since it is the future. This bodes well for the growth of Tesla
- 06/13/2024 – Shareholders are charting Tesla’s future as voting on CEO Elon Musk’s pay package comes to a head (msn.com) Shareholders can still cast votes online Thursday and in person Thursday afternoon at Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting in Austin, Texas. They also can change previously cast votes.
Shares of the company jumped at the opening bell Thursday after the company said in a regulatory filing that stockholders are voting to approve Musk’s pay, valued around $44.9 billion, by a wide margin.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Tesla published Musk’s own posts late Wednesday on X, the social media platform he owns, with charts that appeared to show that shareholders were in favor of his compensation package, as was a measure to move Tesla’s legal home from Delaware to Texas.
Legal experts say that releasing vote totals while balloting is in progress could present problems for Tesla, and that may be why the company made the filing with the SEC, which is likely to look into the matter.
Shareholders can still cast votes online Thursday and in person Thursday afternoon at Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting in Austin, Texas. They also can change previously cast votes.
“Anytime you tell people you’re winning, you’re encouraging others to join you and those who oppose you to pull back,” said Charles Elson, a retired professor and founder of the corporate governance center at the University of Delaware.
Erik Gordon, a law and business professor at the University of Michigan, said Musk’s posts could draw legal scrutiny. “His post had better be accurate or else anyone who bought stock relying on it will have a securities law case against him,” Gordon said in an email.
The SEC declined comment Thursday, and a message was left seeking comment from Tesla.
Elson said posting corporate proxy vote totals before the balloting ends is “highly unusual.”
Social media posts by Musk have drawn scrutiny from the SEC before. He and Tesla were fined a total of $40 million for statements about funding to make Tesla a private company that Musk made on X’s predecessor, Twitter, before he bought the social media platform.
If the pay package is approved, it would almost guarantee that Musk would remain at the company he grew to be the world leader in electric vehicles, shifting to AI and robotics including autonomous vehicles, which Musk says is Tesla’s future.
But if shareholders were to vote against his pay, the CEO could deliver on threats to take artificial intelligence research to one of his other companies. Or he could even walk away from Tesla.
Even with approval, there would be uncertainty. Musk has threatened on X to develop AI elsewhere if he doesn’t get a 25% stake in Tesla (He owns about 13% now). Musk’s xAI recently received $6 billion in funding to develop artificial intelligence.
According to Musk, early indications suggest that shareholders also back a move to relocate Tesla’s legal home to Texas, and out of Delaware.
The move is designed to escape from the Delaware court’s oversight and possibly from McCormick’s ruling. In a January opinion on a shareholder lawsuit, the judge determined that Musk controlled the Tesla board and is not entitled to the landmark pay package.
- 06/13/2024 – Elon Musk’s $46 Billion Pay Package: How Tesla Shareholder Approval Could Play Out in Court – WSJ Renewed support for package is unlikely to end legal challenges
Tesla TSLA 3.15%increase; green up pointing triangle shareholders are set to decide Thursday whether to reinstate a pay package for Elon Musk that was thrown out by a judge. Musk said late Wednesday that so far, shareholders were approving the package by a wide margin.
But a victory for Musk is unlikely to put the issue to rest.
Legal experts say that even with shareholder approval, it is unclear how soon Musk could actually be paid. Here is how the situation could play out.
Will a fresh shareholder approval of the pay deal end the court fight?
Probably not.
While pay packages for typical CEOs require approval from either an independent board or committee or independent shareholders, pay packages for controlling shareholder CEOs usually need signoff from both.
With a fresh shareholder approval, Tesla is hoping it can persuade the Delaware judge to change her ruling. Tesla could point to it as an informed shareholder vote, but it might not address the need for an independent committee’s approval, some lawyers say.
If the Delaware court doesn’t dismiss the case, the company could try arguing on appeal that Musk isn’t a controlling shareholder. If it wins that point on appeal, that—coupled with the new shareholder vote—could be enough to have the case dismissed, said Eric Talley, a law professor at Columbia University.
What might happen to the shareholder who sued Tesla?
Though Tornetta already earned a victory in court, he and his team are waiting for another crucial ruling. His lawyers in January sought some 29 million shares in Tesla, then valued at $5.6 billion, and a further $1 million to cover expenses. That award would result in a record payout for legal fees if approved.
The judge still has to decide how much to award them. A hearing is scheduled for July 8.
Tesla hopes that approval of the pay package by shareholders could limit the fees, which are tied to the benefit provided to Tesla shareholders.
So, would a ‘for’ vote help Musk get paid?
Not so fast, some lawyers say.
Tesla is pursuing two legal avenues at once with the vote. In addition to arguing a new vote addresses the judge’s concerns, Tesla is also betting the vote could ratify the pay package under a provision of Delaware law that allows companies to correct defective corporate actions. Known as Section 204, it is more typically used to address bureaucratic issues such as improper documentation.
If the pay package is ratified, Tornetta’s lawyers are likely to challenge both avenues, especially the unusual application of Section 204.
They could also suggest the new vote was coerced, pointing to recent tweets by Musk. One in particular suggested that unless he can amass roughly 25% voting control in the company, he might focus on projects outside of Tesla. He currently controls a much smaller portion of the vote.
“Mr. Musk seems to be making very thin threats about what he’ll do if they vote against it,” Talley said.
What about the vote to move Tesla to Texas?
Tesla is also asking shareholders to approve the company moving its incorporation to Texas from Delaware. Musk on Wednesday evening said that measure is also poised to pass by a wide margin.
Assuming the move becomes official, a new case could be brought against the pay package in Texas. If that is decided before the Delaware appeal plays out, it could take precedence.
Still, McCormick, who is overseeing the case, seemed to reject this idea recently. She said that she interpreted recent communication by Tesla to mean they “do not plan to litigate any matter related to this action anywhere but Delaware.”
- 06/12/2024 – Tesla shareholders re-approve Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package, Musk says (msn.com) Musk — who remains among the richest people regardless of whether he keeps the pay package — also pledged in a tweet Wednesday night that he would make Tesla the most valuable company on Earth.
Tesla shareholders re-approved Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package by a wide margin, Musk posted on X Wednesday night, appearing to resolve a question that has loomed over his future with the company.
The shareholder vote does not immediately restore Musk’s pay, but it sends a strong signal that the deal has the broad support of Tesla’s investors. In the months leading up to the vote, investors large and small were split on whether to support the package. While some major shareholders criticized him as a distracted leader who doesn’t deserve such a reward, others lauded him for being a generational genius.
“Our answer is clear, loud and unequivocal: Tesla is better with Elon. Tesla is Elon,” said Ron Baron, a billionaire and investor in Tesla, who said Musk was indispensable to Tesla and that his compensation must recognize that fact.
Investors and Musk’s supporters, including X CEO Linda Yaccarino, applauded the preliminary results late Wednesday. Musk — who remains among the richest people regardless of whether he keeps the pay package — also pledged in a tweet Wednesday night that he would make Tesla the most valuable company on Earth.
The full results are expected to be revealed Thursday at a Tesla shareholder meeting in Austin. Musk, in his post, indicated that the number of votes in favor of restoring his pay had surpassed a threshold needed to guarantee a victory on his part.
Elon Musk Says Vote on His Pay Winning by ‘Wide Margins’ – WSJ Tesla CEO also says shareholders are backing the company’s reincorporation to Texas
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said late Wednesday on X that preliminary voting results show shareholders currently backing proposals to ratify his pay package and reincorporate the company in Texas by “wide margins.”
In the post, he included line graphs showing the cumulative “for” votes on both resolutions above the line needed for approval. The post came ahead of the company’s annual shareholders meeting Thursday, at which the final results are expected to be announced.
The results provided by Musk are preliminary, and voters can change their votes until the polls close at the meeting on Thursday.
He added in the post: “Thanks for your support!!”
The results had been unclear earlier Wednesday as Tesla waited on the opinions of its biggest outside investors Vanguard and BlackRock, according to people familiar with the tallies.
- 06/12/2024 – Tesla Is Back On The Hiring Train (msn.com)
After the firing spree came a total hiring freeze. There was absolutely no word when the company was going to open its doors, with an internal reshuffle taking place. Then, a trickle of job postings appeared, but interestingly, only related to experts in the fields of AI and robotics. Elon Musk isn’t one to miss a trend, that’s for sure.
Now, the slow trickle has turned into a flood. Job postings are showing up faster than Superchargers at rest stops. Hundreds of openings are available across all departments, clearly showing that Tesla has gone a bit too far with letting people go. Many of those who lost their jobs are now looking to be rehired. It’s never a boring day at Tesla.
ront-line people who sell the dream and fix what needs to be fixed are in high demand. After all, they are the ones keeping Tesla owners happy. Tesla is also looking for engineers with brilliant minds to design the next Cybertruck or finally crack the code for fully autonomous driving.
According to a CNN report on the 10th, Tesla has taken one step closer to launching its Full Self-Driving (FSD) service in China by agreeing to receive upgraded map software from Chinese portal company Baidu.
Baidu announced on the 8th that it would provide Tesla with lane-level navigation services.
While Tesla does offer Autopilot features in China, it has not yet released FSD due to the country’s data regulations. According to Chinese regulations, all self-driving systems must obtain mapping qualifications before operating on public roads, and foreign companies must partner with approved Chinese companies.
If the FSD service is launched in China, Tesla will be positioned to expand its sales in the world’s largest electric vehicle market.
- 06/11/2024 – https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-shareholder-vote-stock-options-elon-musk-68fc2488?siteid=yhoof2
TSLA stock options indicate significant concern about the shareholder vote on CEO Elon Musk’s enormous 2018 pay package.
- 06/10/2024- A Huge $1.7 Trillion Stakeholder in Tesla Votes Against CEO Elon Musk’s $56,000,000,000 Compensation Package (msn.com)
- 06/10/2024 – CalSTRS the latest vote against Tesla CEO Musk’s $56 billion pay package, CNBC reports (msn.com)
California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) became the latest investor to say it will vote against Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $56-billion pay package, the pension fund’s chief investment officer told CNBC on Monday, days ahead of a consequential shareholder meeting.
So far, influential investor advisory groups Glass Lewis and ISS have weighed in against the new pay deal, and several institutions have also said they will vote against it.
Bernstein analysts said in a note on Monday that the package is unlikely to pass, as it would need a large percentage of outstanding votes to win investor approval.
“If the pay package were to be voted down, we believe it could increase uncertainty regarding the future leadership of the company and jeopardize the ‘Musk premium’,” CFRA Research senior equity analyst Garrett Nelson said.
- 06/10/2024 – Tesla’s Game-Changing Move to Revolutionize Vehicle Safety with Cabin Cameras (msn.com)
Tesla, known for its innovative approach to automotive technology, is making headlines again with a significant update to its vehicle safety features. The electric car giant is set to transition from traditional seat sensors to cabin cameras for detecting seat occupancy, marking a pivotal shift in how vehicle safety mechanisms are implemented.
Tesla is one step closer to launching full-self driving (FSD) technology in China after it clinched an agreement with Baidu to upgrade its mapping software.
Partnering with Baidu would allow Tesla to run its full self-driving system on China’s public roads, with its vehicles able to collect surrounding data, such as road layout, traffic signs and buildings.
It could also accelerate Tesla’s global development of its self-driving technology, as data from China could be used to train Tesla’s algorithms needed for fully autonomous vehicles.
The Chinese tech giant said Saturday that it was providing lane-level navigation services for Tesla cars. Baidu (BIDU) says this level of navigation can provide drivers with detailed information, including making lane recommendations ahead of upcoming turns, to enhance safety.
Experts said during Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s surprise visit to China at the end of April that one of his main hurdles in securing government approval to rollout the company’s FSD software was reaching a mapping and navigation deal with Baidu.
“With the support of Baidu’s lane-level map, Tesla’s navigation can accurately render lane changes on the road the user is currently on, upgrading from providing road-level guidance to providing lane-level guidance,” Baidu said in the statement.
According to Chinese regulations, all self-driving systems must obtain mapping qualifications before operating on public roads. Foreign car companies need to partner with licensed Chinese companies to qualify for surveying and mapping.
Car owners have long complained on social media about Tesla’s previous navigation services, which were also provided by Baidu, saying they often have to rely on other maps available on smartphones while driving.
“This time, you can really remove your mobile phone holders (mounted in the car),” Tesla said in its Friday announcement, suggesting drivers no longer need other maps for navigation.
The news went viral on Chinese social media on Monday.
Among the long list of improvements in v12.4 is the elimination of the infamous “steering wheel nag.” The persistent reminder to keep your hands on the wheel with Autopilot engaged is no more. Musk also claims the latest update will allow Tesla vehicles to drive up to ten times more miles per intervention, sometimes driving for as long as an entire year without being corrected.
But here’s the catch – the bold claim of a full year of driving sans-interventions comes with a small print: “once known bugs are fixed.” And as any Tesla owner will attest, those pesky bugs can be more persistent than that annoying mosquito late at night. Take Tesla’s auto wipers, which are known to malfunction with a mind of their own.
Elon Musk Promises Next FSD Update Will Be A Giant Leap – Tesla Tale
Whole Mars Catalog @WholeMarsBlog FSD 12.4.1 shows promise, but needs some polish. Expect 12.4.2 or 12.4.3 to go wide depending on how things go. 12.4.1 isn’t quite ready to replace 12.3.6 yet but will be soon Huge thanks to Tesla for getting this first build out to early access!
Elon Musk: An accurate assessment
- 06/09/2024 – Elon Musk is pitching a daring idea to Tesla shareholders: A vote for Musk is a ticket to the ‘Muskonomy’ (msn.com)
- Tesla shareholders might have another reason to vote for Elon Musk’s pay package this Thursday.
- Musk has been touting the benefits of having Tesla be a part of his business empire.
- The billionaire has touted access to future IPOs and showcased the synergies between his businesses.
- 06/08/2024 – (1) Elon Musk on X: “I’ve mentioned something like this before, but, if any of my companies goes public, we will prioritize other longtime shareholders of my other companies, including Tesla. Loyalty deserves loyalty.” / X
- 06/06/2024 – Cathie Wood Commends Elon Musk’s Dedication to Shareholders, Predicts This Negative Impact If Shareholders Renege On Tesla CEO’s $56B Pay Package (msn.com)
- 06/05/2024 – (162) Ron Baron on supporting Elon Musk’s pay package: He’s created tremendous wealth for people – YouTube
We have another contract going going this point, going forward
- 06/05/2024 – Tesla announces launch dates for long-awaited Semi as construction on manufacturing facility is underway — here’s the official timeline (msn.com)
- 05/31/2024 – 1 Magnificent S&P 500 Stock Down 58% to Buy and Hold Forever (msn.com)
Investors seem to have soured on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), particularly in recent months. The leading electric vehicle stock has suffered from lightened demand for EVs. Also, a perception of changing priorities in some parts of its business may have given investors pause. Consequently, its stock sells at a 58% discount to its high set in 2021.
Tesla’s struggles are probably temporary
Indeed, the slump in EV sales has hurt Tesla, and many investors have worried about competition from Chinese EV maker BYD. Competition and price cuts have compressed gross margins, which has soured some investors on Tesla stock.
- 05/24/2024
- 05/22/2024 – Tesla’s AI Investments and Upcoming Shareholder Vote Would Determine Future Growth: Morgan Stanley Analyst (msn.com)
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas reiterated an Overweight rating on Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) with a price target of $310.
Jonas highlights that the broader collection of Elon Musk’s businesses may collectively invest tens of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure in the coming years.
The analyst points out that the cost of capital is deterministic for AI supremacy.
In his opinion, Tesla’s success lowers Muskonomy’s cost of capital, while Tesla’s failure raises it.
In addition to the cost of capital, Jonas noted that, on a fundamental level, the data, the infrastructure built, and the path to monetization (TAM) within Tesla are critical to Musk’s seemingly ‘adjacent’ AI efforts.
Jonas flagged that the data captured by the car enhances AI learning and development.
The analyst highlighted that the car’s unique attributes (mobile server, compute, thermal, energy storage) may be seen as more critical in the emerging AI-driven hybrid computing ecosystem.
Over time, he expects to see Musk’s efforts within social media/gen-AI, space/communications, and automotive/transportation become more conspicuously linked.
Jonas noted Tesla’s June 13 shareholder vote as significant to the company’s long-term strategic direction. He expects the event could drive material volatility in the stock.
Several photos that show a two-seater without a steering wheel made their way into an official Tesla video.
Interior images of Tesla’s long-rumored self-driving taxi might have been leaked online by the company itself in a short video meant to convince shareholders to vote for Elon Musk’s huge $56 billion compensation package and the relocation of the automaker’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas.
Baidu Considers Using Tesla’s Robotaxi Tech In China (insideevs.com)
- 05/20/2024 – FDA okays second patient to receive Neuralink implant: report (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha another amazing success for Musk
- 05/20/2024 – Tesla Price Cuts Backfiring? European Rental Companies Fume As EV Giant’s Used Car Values Plummet, Service Leaves Bad Taste (msn.com)
Retail price cuts were intended to boost sales amid declining global demand for electric vehicles and rising competition from Chinese EV makers like BYD and Nio. However, these cuts negatively impacted the residual values of Tesla’s fleet customers in Europe, where fleet purchases make up nearly half of auto sales.
Richard Knubben, director general of Leaseurope, said, “Tesla is now actively telling our members: We can give you discounts and compensate you.”
However, he expressed skepticism about whether these discounts would be sufficient.
Tesla is yet to respond to the queries sent by Benzinga.
Tim Albertsen, CEO of Ayvens, noted that while Tesla’s service has improved, the falling resale values have been damaging. Bart Beckers, Deputy CEO of Arval, a unit of BNP Paribas, mentioned that Tesla’s price cuts were detrimental, leading Arval to consider other EV manufacturers.
- 05/20/2024 – Has Tesla’s Autonomous Taxi Been Debuted? Unconventional Model 3 Seen in California (msn.com) Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that the Cybercab robotaxi will be unveiled at an event on August 8, 2024.
The vehicle was shared by EV enthusiast Nic Cruz Patane across social media outlet X (formerly known as Twitter). Located in Palo Alto, this alleged Model 3 was not merely mirrorless but also displayed a revised array of cameras compared to the standard model, including new placements by the rear window, on the side repeater, and the trunk. Notably, two cameras were installed on the rear seat windows, an installation that captured significant interest.
Chinese Market to Test FSD for Upcoming Robotaxi Service
Might be the Pioneer for Tesla Robotaxis
Concurrently, Tesla has been pursuing the introduction of a robotaxi network in China. Reports this month from Chinese media revealed that Musk has pitched the idea of deploying a full self-driving system in cars marketed to Chinese customers—a move that positions China as a potential first-runner for experiencing Tesla’s robotaxi concept. At this time, Tesla has not provided an official comment on the unusual Model 3 test vehicle seen in California.
When will Tesla’s robotaxi be announced?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that the Cybercab robotaxi will be unveiled at an event on August 8, 2024.
- Tesla’s pivot to AI and robotics, rooted in EVs, creates a unique moat in advanced physical products.
- Current financial contractions are seen as temporary, driven by macroeconomic pressures and competitive dynamics in AI, robotics, and EVs.
- Tesla should be valued like a big tech company, reflecting its heavy AI and robotics involvement, making it potentially undervalued over a 10+ year horizon.
Tesla stock is down nearly 60% from its all-time highs, and analysts on Seeking Alpha and elsewhere are expressing negative sentiments more regularly now, putting out frequent Sell ratings. One of the big arguments these analysts commonly make is that Tesla is “just a car company”. To me, that’s naïve and uninformed. Here are the major areas of AI, robotics, and automation that Tesla has in the works:
- Autonomous Vehicles: Tesla’s FSD has the potential to dominate in the field of autonomous taxis because of the scale of Tesla’s operations when compared to smaller outfits like Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Waymo.
- Optimus is a general-purpose humanoid robot designed to perform repetitive and dangerous tasks. It is also known as Tesla Bot.
- Energy Management Systems: Tesla has an AI-powered platform for energy trading. The company also offers virtual power plants to aggregate distributed energy resources to act as a unified power plant.
- Manufacturing Automation: The company employs extensive automation in its Gigafactories, using advanced robotics to assemble vehicles and batteries. The company also uses AI in quality control.
- AI Research and Development: Tesla is developing Dojo, which is a supercomputer optimized for AI machine learning training; this will significantly affect its FSD and other AI-driven features.
- Customer Service and In-Car Experiences: Tesla vehicles incorporate natural language processing and predictive maintenance.
The culture clash between OpenAI and Tesla is significant as it highlights the tension between corporate interests and the initial ethos of OpenAI, which was founded as a non-profit organization. Microsoft is reported to have an equity stake of 49% in OpenAI, based on multiple reports from the time of the extended partnership deal in 2023. However, this specific detail has not been officially disclosed by OpenAI or Microsoft in their public statements.
- 05/17/2024 – Tesla Analyst Sees Annual Shareholder Meeting As Key To Determining Elon Musk-Led Company’s Future Strategy (msn.com) Tesla’s annual meeting will be held on June 13, 2024, at 3:30 p.m. Central Time (CT). Shareholders will vote both on moving Tesla’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas and Musk’s rescinded pay package
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas sees Tesla Inc‘s (NASDAQ:TSLA) upcoming shareholder vote driving material volatility in the stock and determining the company’s long-term strategic direction as company CEO Elon Musk‘s pay package hangs in limbo.
Analyst Recommendation: For the upcoming shareholder meeting scheduled for June, Tesla shareholders will vote again on Musk’s 2018 pay package which was rescinded by a Delaware court earlier this year after deeming it an “unfathomable sum.” The package was worth $56 billion at the time of award.
The outcome of the vote on the package will be key to determining if the CEO gets a 25% voting block within the company, Jonas said in a note on Friday. Musk has previously expressed discomfort with advancing Tesla in the field of AI without having 25% voting. While the approval of the pay package by itself does not assure the CEO of his desired voting block, it would make it “increasingly difficult” for Musk to achieve 25% ownership if the package is rejected, the analyst noted.
Tesla’s AI potential will remain limited and its share price dominated by larger EV market developments until Musk’s voting control issue is resolved, Jonas said. “This is extremely problematic for Tesla investors for a number of reasons, including the inability to quantify the impact,” he said.
Why It Matters: Tesla’s annual meeting will be held on June 13, 2024, at 3:30 p.m. Central Time (CT). Shareholders will vote both on moving Tesla’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas and Musk’s rescinded pay package.
Price Action: Tesla shares closed down 2% on Friday at $168.47. The stock is down 32.2% year-to-date, as per data from Benzinga Pro.
- 05/17/2024 – Why Can’t Tesla Just Grant Elon Musk A New Pay Package? Critic And Legal Expert Says CEO ‘Can’t Replicate The Stock-Pumping Feats’ From 2018 (msn.com)
- 05/17/2024 – Elon Musk’s X Completes Rebranding Away From Twitter – WSJ
- 05/17/2024 – Tesla’s largest single investor ‘bites back’ against Elon Musk in bombshell ballot votes (msn.com)
Tesla’s largest single investor, who owns 27.6 million shares worth around $4.8 billion, has posted proof online that he voted against reinstating a $56 billion pay package for the company’s CEO, Elon Musk.
In addition to voting against the lofty compensation a Delaware judge blocked in February, this investor shot down all of Tesla’s other recommended ballot measures, including re-electing Elon Musk’s brother, Kimbal, to the carmaker’s board of directors.
Musk owned about 22% of Tesla when the plan was approved. His interest in the company would grow to about 28% if the company’s market capitalization grew by $600 billion.
In a January post on X, Musk wrote: “I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned.”
- 05/16/2024 – Tesla is going all out to push Elon Musk’s $55 billion pay package through — even spending money on ads (msn.com)
- Tesla is spending money on ads to promote Elon Musk’s $55 billion pay plan.
- The company aims to reapprove Musk’s compensation package after it was voided by a judge.
- Whether the package is reinstated will be voted on by shareholders on June 13.
- 05/15/2024 – Tesla Hits the Road to Persuade Shareholders to Pay Elon Musk $46 Billion – WSJ
- 05/10/2024 – Tesla Analyst Sees Annual Shareholder Meeting As Key To Determining Elon Musk-Led Company’s Future Strategy (msn.com)
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas sees Tesla Inc‘s (NASDAQ:TSLA) upcoming shareholder vote driving material volatility in the stock and determining the company’s long-term strategic direction as company CEO Elon Musk‘s pay package hangs in limbo.
Analyst Recommendation: For the upcoming shareholder meeting scheduled for June, Tesla shareholders will vote again on Musk’s 2018 pay package which was rescinded by a Delaware court earlier this year after deeming it an “unfathomable sum.” The package was worth $56 billion at the time of award.
- 05/11/2024 – Tesla Turmoil Means Make-or-Break Moment for EV Charging – WSJ
- 04/30/2024 – Why Musk Now Needs China More Than It Needs Him – WSJ Beijing seeks to score political points as it hands Tesla a victory
- 04/29/2024 – Elon Musk Wins China’s Backing for Tesla’s Driver-Assistance Service – WSJ
SINGAPORE—Elon Musk wrapped up a trip to China in less than 24 hours and came away with a crucial victory as he pushes to reignite Tesla’s TSLA 15.31%increase; green up pointing triangle sagging growth.
After his flurry of meetings with top officials in Beijing, China’s government signaled its blessing for Tesla to roll out its advanced driver-assistance service in the carmaker’s second-biggest market. The Tesla chief executive is seeking to expand use of the controversial software feature globally as the company confronts the prospect of lower sales growth this year.
Chinese officials told Tesla that Beijing has tentatively approved the company’s plan to launch its “Full Self-Driving,” or FSD, software feature in the country, people familiar with the matter said Monday.
The U.S. electric-vehicle maker will deploy its autonomous driving services based on mapping and navigation functions provided by Chinese technology giant Baidu, the people said.
Tesla’s stock was up 10% in morning trading Monday.
- 04/30/2024 – Tesla’s Pivot to China Saved Musk. It Also Binds Him to Beijing. – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
- 04/29/2024 – Tesla soul-searching with Adam Jonas (ft.com) (full article is here – Tesla soul-searching with Adam Jonas)
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https://www.ft.com/content/067b0dce-f34a-4853-8bbe-0ce674e36d04
“The AI brain is searching for its robot ‘body.’ And the body is the vessel of the AI ‘soul’”, writes Adam Jonas in an actual note to clients. Morgan Stanley’s autos analyst has been moved to aphorise by Elon Musk’s surprise visit to Beijing. Less contemplative observers might think Tesla shares are being short-squeezed up ~10 per cent today after Bloomberg reported that the company has received tentative clearance to sell full-self-driving in China — a possibility Musk had flagged during last week’s results conference call. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
https://www.ft.com/content/067b0dce-f34a-4853-8bbe-0ce674e36d04
More important, says Jonas, is the signal that Musk still loves Tesla . . . Investor concerns around whether Elon Musk was ‘all in’ on Tesla have been weighing heavily on the stock since the compensation package was rejected by Delaware judge. Even the smallest gesture of commitment (an unannounced trip to Beijing) has elevated meaning here, combating concerns over Musk’s commitment to Tesla relative the broader Musk ecosystem of companies (SpaceX/X.AI/etc.). … and that China can still tolerate Musk . . . We would assume that Elon Musk’s US national security clearance is higher than that of the typical American CEO due to his control of SpaceX and the range of missions it conducts with NASA, Space Force and the broader [US Department of Defence]. Achieving a potential detente with the PRC on such areas as autonomous driving/FSD (with its obvious national security sensitivity given its ‘dual purpose’ technology) is surprising and deserves greater research and understanding. For now, Musk winning blessing from the PRC for FSD roll-out in the country seems to address embedded fears of Tesla’s China profit (we estimate China accounts for as much as one half of profit). … so investors can still love Tesla, whatever it might become: The ongoing LLM/Gen AI revolution is in the early days of crossing over into robotics. LLM and robotics were long seen as vastly different areas of science. But there may be far more overlap in how the advancement of LLM accelerates the training and learning of the robot – whether it is a ‘car shaped’ robot or a human shaped one. Titled “He’s Back”, the note reiterates Morgan Stanley’s (recently lowered) $310 share price target on Tesla, of which extant businesses contribute $67: © Morgan Stanley And if all those 2030 forecasts don’t pan out, there may be an opportunity to open an Etsy shop:
WHY IS FSD AVAILABLE ONLY ON A LIMITED BASIS IN CHINA?
Tesla has been offering FSD for subscription in China for four years but with a restricted set of features that limit the system to operations like automated lane changing.
Data security issues have been a key obstacle to a full rollout. Musk is looking to obtain official approval to transfer data collected in the country abroad to train algorithms for its autonomous driving technologies, according to the person with the knowledge of the matter.
Since 2021, Tesla has stored all data collected by its Chinese fleet in the country, as required by Chinese regulators, and has not transferred any back to the United States.
In a sign of progress that may lead to a launch of unrestricted FSD in China, Tesla’s Model Y and 3 cars made it onto a top Chinese auto association’s list of 76 car models found to be compliant with China’s data security requirements.
It remains unclear as to what, if any, other regulatory approvals Tesla will need to obtain or what conditions the company may have before it is able to make FSD fully available in China.
WHAT WOULD AN FSD ROLLOUT IN CHINA MEAN FOR TESLA?
The rollout of FSD in China would allow Tesla to better compete with local rivals in the world’s largest auto market where driver assistance and other connected car features are prized.
Tesla has sold more than 1.7 million cars in China since it entered the market a decade ago and its Shanghai factory is its largest globally.
A rollout of unlimited FSD could turn the Chinese market into a battlefield for cheaper driver assistance features, intensifying a price war that Tesla triggered early last year which has pulled in more than 40 brands in the country.
FSD’s entry into the Chinese market will complement offerings of similar software by local automakers. Smartphone maker Xiaomi (1810.HK), opens new tab, for instance, announced plans for the availability of its Navigate on Autopilot (NOA) driver assistance feature on its first car SU7 at the Beijing auto show.
Enabling FSD in China would provide a buffer to Tesla’s declining EV sales by accelerating its diversification towards autonomous technologies, artificial intelligence and humanoid robots and operating a fleet of millions of autonomous vehicles.
Tesla’s vehicle deliveries in the first quarter fell for the first time in nearly four years. The company began the second quarter announcing lay offs of more than 10% of its global workforce and slashing vehicle prices in major markets including the U.S., China and Europe.
WHAT MIGHT AN FSD ROLLOUT MEAN FOR CHINA?
Beijing’s warm reception of Musk and a potential approval for FSD comes as China’s leaders are grappling with souring foreign investment sentiment towards China, with overseas businesses complaining regulatory tightening over areas such as data have left them confused and concerned.
China has signalled it wants to improve the situation, having last month relaxed rules to facilitate and regulate cross-border data flows and allowing free trade pilot zones to independently formulate lists of data that need to undergo security assessments.
Tesla’s Chinese factory is located in a large Shanghai free trade zone.
Li’s meeting with Musk contrasted with the Chinese premier’s decision not to hold a meeting with visiting foreign CEOs at a key annual Beijing forum last month, which had raised concerns about China’s commitment to attracting investment from abroad.
Approval of Tesla’s FSD would also fit with Chinese authorities’ aim to spur competition and innovation to preserve the country’s leading edge in such technologies. Several Chinese automakers and suppliers such as XPeng and Huawei (HWT.UL) are rolling out similar software to Tesla.
- 04/28/2024 – (1) Elon Musk on X: “Honored to meet with Premier Li Qiang. We have known each other now for many years, since early Shanghai days. https://t.co/JCnv6MbZ6W” / X
- 04/05/2024 – The Inside Tale of Tesla’s Fall to Earth – WSJ
- 03/20/2024 – Elon Musk vs. Everyone: The New Fight in AI – WSJ
he AI wars have begun, and the humans are throwing the first punches.
Elon Musk in the past week or so has been working to make it all about his nascent xAI against the Big Dogs.
The billionaire through tweets and litigation is framing his rivals as fundamentally flawed and unworthy: Google is woke, Microsoft MSFT -1.84%decrease; red down pointing triangle is overreaching and Sam Altman is two-faced.
A 35-page complaint filed in a San Francisco court late Thursday is built on what Musk describes as the hypocrisy of Altman. According to the lawsuit, when Altman and Musk started OpenAI years ago they agreed it would be a not-for-profit entity to counter the greed of Google—only to have OpenAI, under Altman’s control, later pivot toward moneymaking ventures with Microsoft.
Musk has also acknowledged the spending war to fund AI companies’ development, saying recently it will take “at least single digit billions in hardware to have a seat at the adult table rather than the kiddies’ table and next year it’s probably in the tens of billions of hardware to remain at the adults’ table.”
The expense behind creating the technology is what necessitated OpenAI’s evolution as an organization beyond being a simple not-for-profit, Altman has said.
OpenAI concluded it wasn’t equipped to operate as a not-for-profit because it was becoming too costly for the amounts of computer power needed to train the software that mimics the way humans think.
“No one wanted to fund this in any way,” Altman told The Wall Street Journal last year. “It was a really hard time.”
Some executives and board members fear the billionaire’s use of drugs—including LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine—could harm his companies
Linda Yaccarino understands the assignment.
Or at least that is what her first staff-wide memo as Twitter CEO suggests. In it, she showed she was in tune with a key management philosophy of her new boss, Elon Musk. That is his total embrace of the so-called first principles approach for problem solving, a mixture of physics and philosophical reasoning that breaks issues into their very basics and doesn’t simply rely on what has been done before.
“We need to think big. We need to transform. We need to do it all together,” Yaccarino wrote Monday, a week into her new role at the social-media company after a longcareer in the television advertising industry.
“And we can do it all by starting from first principles—questioning our assumptions and building something new from the ground up.”
“When you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach,” Musk said in 2013 during a TED talk. “Good physics is really sort of figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics.”
The challenge, according to Musk, is that it is easier to make decisions by looking at previous experiences, past practices or, as he describes it, analogy. These can be mental shortcuts. That is fine for most things in life. But that approach, he said, can be limiting when it comes to discovering something new.
For breakthroughs, he advocates the first principles approach. In the most basic sense, Musk has described the approach as such: “Boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say, ‘OK, what are we sure is true, or as sure as possible is true?’ And then reason up from there.”
In a telling sign of how much Musk believes in first principles, he insisted his children be educated in its way of thinking, setting up Ad Astra School in 2014 built around that philosophy. “It’s so foundational to Elon,” Joshua Dahn, the school’s co-founder, said in an interview.
Creating the school, which served children ages 8 through 14 at SpaceX headquarters until 2020, required Dahn to deploy first principles thinking at every step.
“Part of the superpower is once you understand the first principles approach—and you expect Elon to question you on it along those lines—then there’s no other path if you’re going to find success other than to sort of operate that way,” Dahn said.
The first principles process involves envisioning what ultimate success looks like and then being open to any path that leads there. Even something so ingrained in traditional schooling, such as accreditation, showed how Musk’s mind applied first principles reasoning in decision making, raising very simple questions: “What’s accreditation? Why does it exist? What’s it for? What’s the cost? What’s the opportunity cost of doing that?”
And the answers can’t simply be: That is what other schools do.
“Reasoning by analogy, especially in the early days, is the thing that’s a total killer,” Dahn said.
Musk’s business successes and his often-stated focus on first principles have sparked interest in others. James Clear, the bestselling self-help author, has written about the approach, writing that while great minds from Aristotle to Johannes Gutenberg have employed such reasoning, “no one embodies the philosophy of first principles thinking more effectively” than Musk.
Ad Astra closed at SpaceX in Hawthorne, Calif., when Musk’s children moved on. Dahn has since spun off his work into Astra Nova School, an online offering for a broader population of students.
Still, it isn’t an easy approach. For Musk’s engineers, the work of unlearning assumptions can be challenging, especially at times when the tried-and-true method would be quicker.
Musk lectured on first principles at his children’s school years ago, diving into his reasoning behind starting SpaceX, including the math behind a rocket and the economics behind its costs.
