Firmware
Tesla’s batteries, Autopilot data, and Hardware 3 will be an edge in 2019: fund manager
There are times when something becomes so clearly evident; it becomes difficult to ignore. For a lot of Tesla’s longtime critics, this would be the company’s lead in the EV market. Tesla proved that it could compete in the auto market in 2018. According to a fund manager who beat the markets last year, though, 2019 could be a year where the gap between Tesla and its competitors would widen even further.
ARK Invest founder and CEO Catherine Wood was recently featured on a segment of CNBC’s Fast Money. During her appearance, the ARK CEO, who holds an almost unreal $4000 long-term price target for Tesla, was asked if the influx of electric cars from traditional automakers would be a problem for the Silicon Valley-based carmaker. Wood noted that such a scenario would be unlikely this year, since Tesla holds three particular advantages over its competitors.
“We believe that the transportation industry is going to shift wholesale to electric, and Tesla is ahead of the pack,” she said.
Wood later explained that Tesla’s strengths come from its capability to produce battery cells for its vehicles like the Model 3, thanks to the Nevada Gigafactory and its partnership with Panasonic. The ARK founder also mentioned that Tesla’s use of cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells benefits the electric car maker’s finances, since most competitors from legacy auto are prone to using lithium-ion pouch cells, which are usually more costly.
“Tesla is riding down the consumer electronics cost curve, which is much, much lower than that lithium-ion pouch. They’ve done an amazing thing from an engineering point of view no one else thought was possible. That puts them way ahead of the game,” Wood said.
Apart from its edge in batteries, the ARK Invest CEO pointed out that Tesla’s development of its custom hardware and the company’s tendency to constantly innovate would play a key role in establishing its lead in the EV market. Wood notes that other carmakers would likely rely on the hardware of companies like NVIDIA, which are powerful but follow a more conservative design cadence of 3-5 years. As such, it would be difficult to catch Tesla’s pace of in-house innovation.
Lastly, the fund manager stated that Tesla’s billions of real-world Autopilot miles also gives the company an edge over competitors. This data, Wood noted, is ultimately what will power an autonomous vehicle in the future. In this regard, Tesla is the undisputed leader, with the company announcing late November that its fleet has driven over 1 billion miles on Autopilot. This is something that other self-driving car companies such as Waymo or Cruise Automation does not have.
This particular edge was mentioned previously by Nidhi Kalra, a senior information scientist for the RAND Corporation. Previously addressing Waymo’s vehicles, which have racked up billions of miles in simulation, Kalra noted that there is no replacement for data gathered in actual roads.
“The problem with any simulator is that it’s a simplification of the real world. Even if it stimulates the world accurately if all you’re simulating is a sunny day in Mountain View with no traffic, then what is the value of doing a billion miles on the same cul-de-sac in Mountain View? I’m not saying that’s what anyone’s doing, but without that information, we can’t know what a billion miles really means. Real-world miles still really, really matter. That’s where, literally, the rubber meets the road, and there’s no substitute for it,” she said.
In a way, though, the emergence of competing electric cars bodes well for Tesla. Elon Musk himself, after all, admits that the company exists to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. In a recent appearance at CBS’ 60 Minutes alone, Musk boldly stated that he does not even mind if Tesla gets beaten by a company that produces superior electric vehicles.
“If somebody comes and makes a better electric car than Tesla, and it’s so much better than ours that we can’t sell our cars, and we go bankrupt, I still think that’s a good thing for the world. The whole point of Tesla is to accelerate the advent of electric vehicles and sustainable transport. We’re trying to help the environment; we think it’s the most serious problem that humanity faces,” he said.
For now, though, Wall Street appears to be looking at Tesla with optimism. As of writing, Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) is up 3.99% at $347.74 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
It appears that Tesla may be preparing to roll out some subscription-based services soon. Based on the observations of a Wales-based Model 3 owner who performed some reverse-engineering on the Tesla mobile app, it seems that the electric car maker has added a new “Subscribe” option beside the “Buy” option within the “Upgrades” tab, at least behind the scenes.
A screenshot of the new option was posted in the r/TeslaMotors subreddit, and while the Tesla owner in question, u/Callump01, admitted that the screenshot looks like something that could be easily fabricated, he did submit proof of his reverse-engineering to the community’s moderators. The moderators of the r/TeslaMotors subreddit confirmed the legitimacy of the Model 3 owner’s work, further suggesting that subscription options may indeed be coming to Tesla owners soon.
Did some reverse engineering on the app and Tesla looks to be preparing for subscriptions? from r/teslamotors
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite has been heavily speculated to be offered as a subscription option, similar to the company’s Premium Connectivity feature. And back in April, noted Tesla hacker @greentheonly stated that the company’s vehicles already had the source codes for a pay-as-you-go subscription model. The Tesla hacker suggested then that Tesla would likely release such a feature by the end of the year — something that Elon Musk also suggested in the first-quarter earnings call. “I think we will offer Full Self-Driving as a subscription service, but it will be probably towards the end of this year,” Musk stated.
While the signs for an upcoming FSD subscription option seem to be getting more and more prominent as the year approaches its final quarter, the details for such a feature are still quite slim. Pricing for FSD subscriptions, for example, have not been teased by Elon Musk yet, though he has stated on Twitter that purchasing the suite upfront would be more worth it in the long term. References to the feature in the vehicles’ source code, and now in the Tesla mobile app, also listed no references to pricing.
The idea of FSD subscriptions could prove quite popular among electric car owners, especially since it would allow budget-conscious customers to make the most out of the company’s driver-assist and self-driving systems without committing to the features’ full price. The current price of the Full Self-Driving suite is no joke, after all, being listed at $8,000 on top of a vehicle’s cost. By offering subscriptions to features like Navigate on Autopilot with automatic lane changes, owners could gain access to advanced functions only as they are needed.
Elon Musk, for his part, has explained that ultimately, he still believes that purchasing the Full Self-Driving suite outright provides the most value to customers, as it is an investment that would pay off in the future. “I should say, it will still make sense to buy FSD as an option as in our view, buying FSD is an investment in the future. And we are confident that it is an investment that will pay off to the consumer – to the benefit of the consumer.” Musk said.
Tesla has started rolling out update 2020.36 this weekend, introducing a couple of notable new features for its vehicles. While there are only a few handful of vehicles that have reportedly received the update so far, 2020.36 makes it evident that the electric car maker has made some strides in its efforts to refine its driver-assist systems for inner-city driving.
Tesla is currently hard at work developing key features for its Full Self-Driving suite, which should allow vehicles to navigate through inner-city streets without driver input. Tesla’s FSD suite is still a work in progress, though the company has released the initial iterations of key features such Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control, which was introduced last April. Similar to the first release of Navigate on Autopilot, however, the capabilities of Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control were pretty basic during their initial rollout.
2020.36 Showing Speed Limit Signs in Visualization from r/teslamotors
With the release of update 2020.36, Tesla has rolled out some improvements that should allow its vehicles to handle traffic lights better. What’s more, the update also includes a particularly useful feature that enables better recognition of speed limit signs, which should make Autopilot’s speed adjustments better during use. Following are the Release Notes for these two new features.
Green Traffic Light Chime
“A chime will play when the traffic light you are waiting for turns green. If you are waiting behind another car, the chime will play once the car advances unless Traffic-Aware Cruise Control or Autosteer is active. When Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control is activated, a chime will play when you can confirm to proceed through a green traffic light. To enable, tap Controls > Autopilot > Green Traffic Light Chime.
“Note: This chime is only designed as a notification. It is the driver’s responsibility to observe their environment and make decisions accordingly.”
Speed Assist Improvements
“Speed Assist now leverages your car’s cameras to detect speed limit signs to improve the accuracy of speed limit data on local roads. Detected speed limit signs will be displayed in the driving visualization and used to set the associated Speed Limit Warning.
“As usual, to adjust Speed Assist settings, tap Controls > Autopilot > Speed Limit.”
Footage of the new green light chime in action via @NASA8500 on Twitter ✈️ from r/teslamotors
Amidst the rollout of 2020.36’s new features, speculations were abounding among Tesla community members that this update may include the first pieces of the company’s highly-anticipated Autopilot rewrite. Inasmuch as the idea is exciting, however, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that this was not the case. While responding to a Tesla owner who asked if the Autopilot rewrite is in “shadow mode” in 2020.36, Musk responded “Not yet.”
Tesla has rolled out a free three-month trial subscription to Sirius XM, in what appears to be the company’s latest push into making its vehicles’ entertainment systems more feature-rich. The new Sirius XM offer will likely be appreciated by owners of the company’s vehicles, especially considering that the service is among the most popular satellite radios in the country today.
Tesla announced its new offer in an email sent on Monday. An image that accompanied the communication also teased Tesla’s updated and optimized Sirius XM UI for its vehicles. Following is the email’s text.
“Beginning now, enjoy a free, All Access three-month trial subscription to Sirius XM, plus a completely new look and improved functionality. Our latest over-the-air software update includes significant improvements to overall Sirius XM navigation, organization, and search features, including access to more than 150 satellite channels.
“To access simply tap the Sirius XM app from the ‘Music’ section of your in-car center touchscreen—or enjoy your subscription online, on your phone, or at home on connected devices. If you can’t hear SiriusXM channels in your car, select the Sirius XM ‘Subscription’ tab for instruction on how to refresh your audio.”
Tesla has actually been working on Sirius XM improvements for some time now. Back in June, for example, Tesla rolled out its 2020.24.6.4 update, and it included some optimizations to its Model S and Model X’s Sirius XM interface. As noted by noted Tesla owner and hacker @greentheonly, the source code of this update revealed that the Sirius XM optimizations were also intended to be released to other areas such as Canada.
Interestingly enough, Sirius XM is a popular feature that has been exclusive to the Model S and X. Tesla’s most popular vehicle to date, the Model 3, is yet to receive the feature. One could only hope that Sirius XM integration to the Model 3 may eventually be included in the future. Such an update would most definitely be appreciated by the EV community, especially since some Model 3 owners have resorted to using their smartphones or third-party solutions to gain access to the satellite radio service.
The fact that Tesla seems to be pushing Sirius XM rather assertively to its customers seems to suggest that the company may be poised to roll out more entertainment-based apps in the coming months. Apps such as Sirius XM, Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube, may seem quite minor when compared to key functions like Autopilot, after all, but they do help round out the ownership experience of Tesla owners. In a way, Sirius XM does make sense for Tesla’s next-generation of vehicles, especially the Cybertruck and the Semi, both of which would likely be driven in areas that lack LTE connectivity.
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