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Tesla scraps its plan for a $25,000 Model 2 EV
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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So instead of trying to compete with BYD, they are leaving that space open for Chinese domination, and instead they are trying to catch up to the Waymo-Uber-Lyft race where Tesla has not even tried to compete yet.
To me, it just seems that Musk just doesn't believe in market capitalism and competition. Or that he's exceptionally terrible at it.
I believe a huge chunk of Tesla's valuation is based on their automation tech, despite having very little real success towards full automation. So they have to focus on that and try to prove they can deliver.
But I'm guessing they won't succeed, as there are fundamental flaws with the technology itself, that can't be solved by throwing more sensors at the problem.
It seems their stock valuation rests on an assumption that their self-driving tech is unique, useful and best-of-class. I don't see how they can benefit putting these claims to the test by trying to compete in the robotaxi market.
Their stock valuation rests entirely on large entities shorting the stock, and other large entities saying “I will take that bet!”. That’s pretty much it.
All stock valuation rests on like three entities making numbers up, that's not the thing. The question is how long will Wall Street keep Musky boy on the nice list if he is becoming more and more visibly incompetent.
But can it be solved by throwing less sensors at the problem? Cause that's what he's been doing. Removing sensors from the newer versions that were in the older ones.
Drop the cameras, add lidar instead. That's true 3d vision, which no amount of cameras can replace.
But people drive with just eyes, why can't cars drive with just eyes? Someone in Tesla accountint probably...
Elon has literally said exactly this so many times. I think it is probably possible to make a car drive with just vision, but you make the task monumentally harder by not having things that ground you in reality, ie. lidar.
Someone told them the problem was just "too many variables", so they figured by taking away sensors, there are fewer variables. Therefore, better self-driving.
Untill they released FSD Beta V12. The leap it took from the previous version is insane. It drives really good now.
It's still nowhere near any standard we should expect to trust this technology, which is a flawed solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
40k people die on traffic accidents each year in the US alone, so I wouldn't say there's no problem to fix.
How does it compare to Waymo and Cruise? How many cities let driverless Teslas roam around? Those are the questions that will get asked from here on out, since they said they want to compete there.
I don't know anyone who makes videos about Waymo or Cruise on YouTube so I have no clue how it compares. That wasn't my point. I'm only comparing current FSD beta to the previous versions of itself.
CYBRLFT does ridesharing videos where he lets FSD beta do the driving and I believe the success rate with V12 has been over 90% that the car didn't need any driver interference.
Waymo and Cruise aim at no drivers. So “driver interference” is not even an option. And they’re already on the road in selected cities.
I believe FSD is making great progress yes. They’re probably better than the competition (from car manufacturers’ equivalent). But I don’t think they’re working at the same level as Waymo. Just not.
In Tesla's defence; their system works anywhere even when the road is not mapped, but these robo taxi services only do on selected geo-fenced areas. Atleast that's my understanding of it. It's conceiviable that what Tesla is doing by completely relying on neural nets is the right way to go where as the other with human programmes is a dead end. Only time will tell I guess. I'm not educated enough on Cruise and Waymo in general so I can't really comment on that.
Don’t know about Cruise, but Waymo also, and they’ve been tested in snow and rain that Tesla doesn’t even engage. https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1721629316625093035
To be fair, Tesla is probably doing testing in winter too. But again, Tesla doesn’t seem to be aiming at level 4, while Waymo is going level 5 all the way.
My point is that if they make something novel, which is a very good driver assist system for general use, it's fine to compare it with previous versions of itself, since they might be market leaders there. But since Musk says they are trying to compete with the robotaxi companies, now every positive achievement will be compared to their competition, not themselves.
I'm not saying Tesla is not getting better, or even how good it is, I'm just saying Musk just massively raised the bar on expectations, and not even in a way that would get their stock up substantially.