[alexandros]

You make no mention of HW3, which will be installed on the cars that bought FSD for free, and includes Tesla's own chip, (I assume some kind of TPU) designed by Jim Keller. It has been described by Tesla as having 100x the FPS processing capability that the nvidia PX2, the one they use now, has [1]. So they're more or less in full agreement with, and have been working on making happen, the things you say need to be done, for the past 3-4 years.

Tesla's head of AI is Andrej Karpathy, who many in this community hold in high esteem. I know this is "argument by authority", but we're working with a black box here, so it will have to do. Do you really think he is wasting his best years on a project that anyone in the field can "guarantee" will never happen? Or could it be that he knows something you don't?

By the way, it seems you also don't know that they hold most FSD revenue in reserve on their financials, it's not being spent. So if they need to return it, they can.

[1]: https://www.inverse.com/article/47683-tesla-elon-musk-just-d...

[codelord]

It's hard to argue when all of your arguments are based on Elon Musk's assertions. I remember watching Elon Musk in one of his product announcement events promising that development of full self-driving mode will be finished by the end of 2018 and rolled out through 2019. This is while they told CA DMV they haven't tested even a single mile in self-driving mode in 2018: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/96c89ec9-aca6-4910... You'd think they need at least one mile before rolling out the feature.

Regarding the TPU chip that is 100x faster than NVidia's chip, I also take that with a grain of salt. Note that 3rd generation Google TPUs are on par with latest NVidia GPUs in terms of performance according to Google. If Tesla has made a chip that is 100x faster, they should spin it off as a separate company that could be valuable as much as 2x Tesla's market cap.

[fattire]

>Note that 3rd generation Google TPUs are on par with latest NVidia GPUs in terms of performance according to Google. If Tesla has made a chip that is 100x faster, they should spin it off

I don't think they've claimed that the FSD computer (hw3) is 100x faster than "the latest NVidia GPUs". He's said that it's about an order of magnitude in the number of video images the current Nvidia hardware in a Tesla can process (that is, from 150-200fps to ~2000fps) without needing to scale down any frames.

I think he may have said in one live interview it would be "2000%" better, but since he said previously it would do 2000 frames/s, that may have just been a mistake of saying "percent" instead of "frames".

[alexandros]

Your TPU point makes no sense. If Google's TPUs are on par with NVIDIA GPUs for NN workloads (I assume that's what you mean on par?) then they suck at making chips, which they don't. What's even the point of making them, and why has e.g. Deepmind been using them if they could have been using NVidia chips in the first place? I don't think they're budget constrained. It sounds to me like you're using a non-relevant definition of "on par".

About the stuff that's based on Elon's assertions:

First, yes, he is often wrong on timelines. Nobody doubts that. By the way, for other car companies (even Waymo!) who claim they'll have X milestone by Y date, everyone is understanding, since timelines slip. For Tesla, apparently it's a capital crime to say "I think we'll have it by then" and not have it. But your original points were not about timelines.

As for the miles they have registered with the DMV, Tesla's self-driving programme does not follow the same path as others. They are progressing from level 2 upwards, and deploying improvements to their fleet of cars in production. Other companies are working with tiny fleets and aiming directly at level 4+. So basically, you're looking in the wrong place. But even so, Elon's latest prediction is that they'll have "feature completeness" by end of year, and then they'll start working on regulatory approval. So I assume that's when you'll start seeing miles there, and you will very likely see lots of them, all at once.

[omgwtfbyobbq]

As far as I know, Tesla's FSD feature set is level 2, which no manufacturer needs to report to the CA DMV.

[ma2rten]

Andrej Karpathy just finished his PhD and he was offered an executive position at a major public company. Also, he is not wasting his time. His department is building something that is actually used in cars today. It's just not the self-driving software that Elon is pitching.

[chronic932]

> Andrej Karpathy just finished his PhD and he was offered an executive position at a major public company.

Since when is middle management with an org size of 80 an "executive position"?

> His department is building something that is actually used in cars today.

So do the departments at Cruise, Waymo, BMW, and even universities. Karpathy isn't special -- and neither is Tesla Autopilot's progress.

[navigatesol]

Ah, so they are going to equip all future cars with a chip that doesn't exist yet, for free, so it will shrink margins even more. Sounds smart.

>By the way, it seems you also don't know that they hold most FSD revenue in reserve on their financials, it's not being spent. So if they need to return it, they can.

Please point to the line and note in the financials where this is done, because I'm quite sure you're mistaken. Tesla hardly has any warranty reserves, let alone FSD refunds.