
Tesla, software and disruption - slyall
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2018/8/29/tesla-software-and-disruption
======
brian-armstrong
Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability
disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is
a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.

~~~
r00fus
I know that I successfully used hybrid button-touchscreen interface for my
Prius for over a decade. It was great and resulted in no accidents or even
distractions.

It's modular so additional features can be integrated by pure software so
upgrades are possible.

Sure 90% touchscreen (some stuff is still manual) sounds crazy but Model3
owners don't seem to complain too much. I'd bet an 80% interface would work
great today.

Enter a perfected voice control and L4 auto drive and we'll officially be
living in the future.

~~~
brian-armstrong
90%? There really aren't very many controls in a car, does that mean
headlightd and windshield wipers are not on stalks but in a touchscreen?

~~~
annerajb
Yes both on touchscreen headlight is automatic same with wipers thought.there
are also keybindings to the multi way scroll wheels on the steering wheel. It
also modify bindings based on last action.if you manually had to enable wipers
it switches the scroll wheels to activate it.

------
pcprincipal
I read a lot of articles on TSLA and usually fail to see any mention of their
power business. Granted, this is a small part of revenue right now ($1.1BN for
FY17 of $11.8BN total), but growing fast and with some highly visible data
points (Puerto Rico, South Australia). They are going to win multi-billion-
dollar contracts if the US or other countries decide to rebuild their grids.
As a TSLA shareholder, this opportunity actually gets me more excited about
the future of the company than autonomy. It seems to me they have less
competition doing huge battery installations than building autonomous
vehicles.

~~~
IBM
There's even less of a moat for Tesla in selling batteries to utilities than
there is for their cars.

And SolarCity was heading to zero. It was acquired by Tesla because Elon had
to bail himself out or the myth of Elon Musk as Tony Stark would have been
undone. But also because he along with his cousins would have lost a lot of
money. That's compounded by the fact that Elon is significantly personally
leveraged and any loss of confidence in Elon Musk Inc. or a decline in his
holdings would imperil his other companies [1].

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-supports-his-
business...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-supports-his-business-
empire-with-unusual-financial-moves-1461781962)

~~~
Animats
Especially since Tesla doesn't make cells. They buy from Panasonic. Panasonic
competes directly with Tesla in home and bulk energy storage.[1]

[1] [https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-
storage...](https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-
storage/battery-storage)

~~~
kjksf
That product is not made by Panasonic but by Pika Energy ([https://www.pika-
energy.com/harbor-battery/](https://www.pika-energy.com/harbor-battery/)).

Never heard of Pika before? Me neither.

Which is why they are not as much a threat to Tesla's Powerwall as you claim.

When you order from Tesla
([https://www.tesla.com/powerwall](https://www.tesla.com/powerwall)) you get
some inkling of how much it'll cost.

When you order from Pika ([https://www.pika-
energy.com/purchase/](https://www.pika-energy.com/purchase/))? "Call us".

I yet have to see any serious competition to Tesla's Powerwall. BMW tried to
compete and they folded ([https://electrek.co/2018/04/30/mercedes-benz-kills-
tesla-pow...](https://electrek.co/2018/04/30/mercedes-benz-kills-tesla-
powerwall-killer-energy-storage-device/)).

~~~
ReverseCold
The other solar providers are usually done the traditional car way. You find
some local company (akin to a car dealership) to install your panels, and
they'll tell you how much it costs.

EnergySage does give you some insight to the price before you buy though.

Basically, you don't buy the battery from Pika energy, you buy it from a local
dealer.

------
Animats
What "massive amount of data" from Tesla? They don't send all the video back
to HQ. Tesla owners have observed large uploads, but apparently they are
software crash dumps.

~~~
pbreit
It's probably a representation of the video data that has value to providing
autonomy. Plus all the path & geo data. With a few hundred thousand cars
collecting it, I'd say that's "massive".

~~~
Latteland
You can also opt out of their monitoring of their car. I've wondered what the
impact would be if I opted out on mine.

~~~
pbreit
Zero.

------
empath75
I don’t get why Tesla added the self driving stuff at all. Just seems like a
lot of wasted investment that keeps the price of the car high. They could have
released a much cheaper model 3 without it, and likely deal with less bad
press from their cars killing their owners.

~~~
annerajb
It's not mandatory to buy the self driving car. They want it on the car
regardless of the customer buys it or not. They have other uses for the
hardware.

------
sparkzilla
Tesla is going to find it increasingly difficult as new competitors come
online. For example, Autocar just gave Jaguar's I-Pace a positive review in a
head-to-head comparison [1]. IMHO the I-Pace is a good-looking car, and has a
superior interior to the Tesla. As more manufacturers catch up, can Tesla
survive?

[1] [https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/tesla-model-s-
vs...](https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/tesla-model-s-vs-jaguar-i-
pace-ev-twin-test)

~~~
jsight
The i-pace looks nice, but really showcases the technical lead that Tesla has.
The i-pace is bigger, with less interior space, and poorer energy efficiency,
which ultimately leads to less-than-great range.

Maybe a second generation of it will be competitive.

~~~
sparkzilla
The I-Pace range isn't that much different from the Tesla. Anyway, the point
isn't that the I-Pace is better, it's that it -- and the many other EVs coming
from major manufacturers -- is competitive enough to take sales away from
Tesla.

~~~
Latteland
there's no supercharger like network for the i-pace, making it only a city
car. Tesla can drive from seattle to bamff, or portland to san diego or across
the country. no other car can do that.

~~~
sparkzilla
Tesla has no monopoly on charging stations, which are popping up everywhere.
In the UK, for example: [https://www.zap-map.com/live/](https://www.zap-
map.com/live/)

~~~
Latteland
Agreed, they just staked out a lot of the good spots way ahead of the other
companies. Tesla needs some pressure from other companies at least trying to
compete. That requires a high power charging network, dealer interest in
selling, good cars, and enough to sell. Up to now the competitors are mostly
0/4, although the bolt seems good, as is the i-pace. The i3 was a wasted
opportunity (tiny gas tank, too small a battery). Let's see if the next gen is
any good, and if they can built enough charging stations to matter. Europe
seems way ahead of the us on high power charging (except for tesla).

------
MarkMc
Excellent article with well-reasoned analysis of the range of future
possibilities for Tesla. But one disappointing omission is any mention of
ride-hailing - surely it will have enormous consequences for the entire auto
industry because people will for the most part stop buying cars and switch to
autonomous taxis. This will (a) reduce the demand for number of new cars
produced; (b) reduce the profit from each car (nobody really cares about the
color or horsepower or brand of the taxi they take to work)

~~~
gizmo
If Tesla is the first to crack autonomy they will win, regardless of ride-
hailing. If Tesla doesn't crack autonomy they're likely to go under,
regardless of ride-hailing.

~~~
repsilat
> _If Tesla is the first to crack autonomy they will win, regardless of ride-
> hailing._

I think that's a bit strong. People don't replace their cars all that often,
and no massive increase in demand for Tesla's cars is going to cause their
production numbers to jump.

If they get full autonomy out five years ahead of Waymo and Cruise (good
luck), they still probably won't win a dominant share of the market longer-
term.

> _If Tesla doesn 't crack autonomy they're likely to go under_

Shrugs, I think autonomy could seriously hurt them, _whoever_ invents it.
Tesla builds "a better car" \-- nice acceleration, clean interface, more
reliable -- and autonomous ride-hailing in cities essentially leads to the
cars themselves not being an important point of differentiation.

------
dnprock
I think an important advantage is vertical integration. Similar to Apple and
iPhone, Tesla controls most of the stack. They can do a lot more than their
competitors.

~~~
dragontamer
There are a ton of differences between Apple and Tesla. Most noticeably, Apple
actually made a profit selling the iPhone.

6-years after the release of the Model S, Telsa has yet to turn a profit. And
instead, is facing bankruptcy within the next two years unless it can roll
over its debt or otherwise raise yet a few more billion $$$$.

Compare and contrast: the iPhone was released in 2007. The Tesla Model S was
released in 2012. Steve Jobs died in 2011 (4-years after the iPhone). You can
tell that that Apple was a successful company by the time Steve Jobs died.

Furthermore, Apple accomplished its iPhone launch during the 2007 to 2008
financial crisis. In contrast, Tesla's rampup is during the cheapest money
ever to be seen in modern history: low interest rates and a grand bull market.

The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced during its
time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's. And
yet, Apple turned a profit and became a lasting company. The same cannot be
said yet of Tesla.

~~~
trisomy21
“The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced during its
time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's.“

I get that you might not be bullish on Tesla, but do you seriously believe
this?

~~~
dragontamer
Were you around during the 2008 financial recession?

Major US banks were literally going bankrupt, credit dried up. There was
almost no opportunity to borrow money, the stock market was crashing, no
opportunity to IPO or perform a secondary offering.

Tesla is operating under one of the greatest, and longest, bull markets the US
has ever seen. The great 2011 to 2018 (maybe longer??) boom. Tesla has been
able to either secondary-offering, or borrow, roughly billion+ each year,
every year, since its IPO.

During recent years, its borrowed or otherwise raised over $2 billion / year.

~~~
trisomy21
I was. And all that might even be relevant if you weren't comparing Tesla to
Apple.

The iPhone actually launched in 2007, the same year in which Apple generated
over $24B in revenue and was sitting on $15B in cash at the end of the fiscal
year. In 2008, they did $37B in revenue and ended the fiscal year sitting on
about $25B in cash.

The claim that Apple's financial challenges with launching a smartphone were
"exponentially" greater than Tesla's, is laughable.

~~~
dragontamer
> And all that might even be relevant if you weren't comparing Tesla to Apple.

I'm not comparing Apple to Tesla. The parent article is. And I'm trying to
point out how utterly silly the comparison is.

Quote the first paragraph:

> When Nokia people looked at the first iPhone, they saw a not-great phone
> with some cool features that they were going to build too, being produced at
> a small fraction of the volumes they were selling. They shrugged. “No 3G,
> and just look at the camera!”

> When many car company people look at a Tesla, they see a not-great car with
> some cool features that they’re going to build too, being produced at a
> small fraction of the volumes they’re selling. “Look at the fit and finish,
> and the panel gaps, and the tent!”

\--------

This comparison is fundamentally insane, and shouldn't be the starting point
of any serious discussion.

~~~
trisomy21
You said: “The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced
during its time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than
Tesla's.“

I brought attention to this and showed how ridiculous of an assertion it was.

And now you're saying: "I'm not comparing Apple to Tesla. The parent article
is. And I'm trying to point out how utterly silly the comparison is."

The other quotes you've added are all irrelevant. You're all over the place.
Give it a rest and come back when you have a properly thought out point to
make with some evidence to support it.

~~~
slededit
You did say it was ridiculous, but never proved it. Apple may have had money
in the bank but selling a luxury product in the middle of a financial crisis
was an up hill battle.

Consumer confidence was at all time lows and disposable income saw the biggest
drop since the great depression. People were more concerned about whether
they'd still have a job and savings rates upticked dramatically while salaries
fell.

~~~
trisomy21
Have you looked at Apple's performance during that time period? As I pointed
out in my previous post, Apple was sitting on $25B in cash in 2008.
Additionally, their annual revenue nearly tripled and their profit quadrupled
from 2007-2010. That's not an up hill battle.

All your talk about the economic environment during the recession is
irrelevant because Apple had $25B cash in the bank and the iPhone was a hit,
even though it was a luxury item being sold during the recession. The massive
scale of their business and their overall success insulated them from the
larger ramifications of the economic downturn. Tesla is operating in the
opposite economic environment today, but they are not as financially
surefooted as Apple was during the launch of the iPhone. So, to get back to
the point, to claim that the financial challenges Apple faced bringing the
iPhone to market were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's, just isn't
true.

~~~
slededit
Yes and making the iPhone a hit is a lot harder when your customers don't have
any money to spend.

Nobody is saying Apple couldn't afford the R&D to build the physical phones.

~~~
trisomy21
It's not harder when you have $25B in cash to spend on fancy marketing,
advertising, promotion etc. Do you not understand how massive of an advantage
that is? It effectively makes you recession proof. Additionally, you can look
at Apple's financials to see that they had no problem selling millions of
iPhones through the recession. In fact Q4 of 2009 was their most profitable
quarter ever (up until that point) which was the tail end of the recession. It
was a radically successful launch by all metrics.

Any way you look at it, launching the iPhone, given Apple's cash, marketing
muscle, and hw/sw expertise, wasn't as challenging (even in a recession)as
bringing an electric vehicle to market and it by no means was "exponentially
more difficult" – in the words of the OP.

I don't have anything more to add to this discussion. I think it's clear that
the OP's claim is incredibly uninformed and wildly inaccurate.

~~~
dragontamer
> It's not harder when you have $25B in cash to spend on fancy marketing,
> advertising, promotion etc. Do you not understand how massive of an
> advantage that is?

Come on. Its Mr. Musk's decision to make a company take advantage of debt
markets instead of waiting for a few years for the Roadster or Model S to make
some profits. Tesla's current financial situation is 100% the decision of
Musk.

Musk chose debt and stock offerings because he wanted to take advantage of
bull market conditions. He's received something on the order of ~$10 Billion
from investors, either from the debt market or the stock market (IPOs or
Secondary offerings).

If Tesla were to try its strategy of "IPO to get a ton of money each year,
every year" during any __other __time in US history, it would have literally
come across a recession and run out of money.

The Gigafactory was literally built on top of debt and stock offerings. Tesla
never had that money to begin with.

------
frenchie4111
Something missing from this article: Tesla doesn't necessarily need to solve
the vision only SLAM/Autonomy problem itself. If anyone solves the problem,
and is willing to sell it. Tesla can immediately license it and turn their
fleet of 200k+ Autopilot 2 cars into self driving cars overnight.

~~~
akira2501
> Tesla can immediately license it

Aren't they already licensing the second generation from Nvidia on Nvidia
hardware?

> Autopilot 2 cars into self driving cars overnight.

That's presuming that the current sensor arrays, computing power and their
arrangements will be compatible with the new technology.

~~~
annerajb
No. Tesla does not use Nvidia software libraries afaik. They do license the
socs and gpus on a board designed by tesla. Based on the drive px1 reference
design. Being changed in 6-8 months to a custom made asic made specifically
for self driving by Tesla.

------
diskandar27
it seems the article boils down to the autonomy puzzle in Tesla. Could Tesla
make the autonomy a realization with their approach? would waymo approach be
better in the future?

One thing I think that is missing, although it mentioned people love their
Tesla and so is other thing in life. It is the fact that I felt that this is
derived from the way Tesla designed the car, it is intuitive just like when
the first Iphone introduced. There is no whistle and bells like the
traditional car. Just like iphone compare to Nokia.

My big take away is harder for the car company to become a software company
than a software company become a car company. Not to mentioned as a car
company, it has lots of 'legacy' or baggage that they have to deal with.

The works is two times harder I think for an incumbent to become a software
company as a compare software company to become a hardware company. First: As
an incumbent they have to unlearned the old way of doing or thinking about
what a car company is. Second: If they are successful at the first one, then
they have to learn how to do the software.

While for Tesla, is only 1 step which is to learn how to make car (about the
hardware). Tesla does not need to unlearn about things because it has no
legacy.

In my experience it is harder to unlearn about things rather than learning
about things. I might be wrong :)

~~~
amluto
> It is the fact that I felt that this is derived from the way Tesla designed
> the car, it is intuitive just like when the first Iphone introduced.

I beg to differ. The iPhone was intuitive in that all the (built-in) apps were
nicely laid out so you could easily interact with them while you are looking
at the phone and giving it most of your attention. Kind of like a Tesla is
nicely laid out so that you can mostly easily figure out how to, say, adjust
the ventilation while looking at the big display and giving it a decent amount
of attention.

This is far better than the car I grew up with that made you press the totally
unintuitive recirculate button when you wanted recirculation.

</sarcasm>

To Tesla’s credit, their on/off/drive/reverse control is vastly superior to
anyone else’s. Heck, several brands still screw up their “off” button badly
enough that it kills people by CO poisoning.

~~~
henrikschroder
> To Tesla’s credit, their on/off/drive/reverse control is vastly superior to
> anyone else’s.

They got it from Mercedes, as well as all the other steering wheel stalks
(lights, window washers, cruise control), as well as the driver door window
and mirrors control pad.

Good on them for selecting the best on the market, but it's not their
invention.

~~~
amluto
As far as I know, Teslas are unique or nearly unique in that you can put the
car in park and exit the car and there is no risk that you accidentally leave
the car on. Certainly in Toyota vehicles (even brand new) you can arrive at
your destination, do the wrong sequence of button presses, and end up with the
car in park (so it won't roll), with the engine physically off (because the
car has automatic stop-start, so it is likely to turn off the engine by itself
when you park) and exit the car, and end up with the car in a state that will
_restart_ the engine when it starts to cool down or when the 12V system wants
to be topped off and start emitting CO. In your garage.

I've made this mistake myself, although not in a garage, and I've noticed it
before I actually exited the car. But a surprising number of people have
actually died due to this UI failure.

------
PAClearner
for anyone who maybe got confused SLAM stands for Simultaneous Localization
and Mapping.

edit: I think if it is possible to do SLAM without LIDAR waymo will definitely
beat TESLA to the punch since waymo has an absurd amount of vision data
labelled with the lidar-measured-depth.

~~~
mrfusion
Speaking of that. I’d think we could possibly train on simulations. We’d have
the 3d information plus the rendered 2d camera view.

~~~
PAClearner
I don't know if people do this for vision yet but I know some people doing
this for RL for robotic control.

~~~
annerajb
Google has a simulation for their cars that does this. Nvidia has a hw suit
for this purpose too and for testing autopilot hardware by feeding it data
from another rack/server

------
jfoster
"That is, it’s entirely possible that Waymo, or someone else, gets autonomy to
work in 202x with a $1000 or $2000 LIDAR and vision sensor suite and Tesla
still doesn’t have it working with vision alone."

In this scenario there still may be an upside for Tesla. For Waymo to cover
the world in LIDAR-equipped cars will take decades. Tesla already sells cars
all over the world. The Tesla car sharing network may scale extremely quickly
as a result. Even if Waymo takes some markets first, once Tesla has autonomy
working, they can be in most markets at the flip of a switch.

Since the cars participating in the sharing network would be from Tesla
purchasers, people may purchase the cars as an investment, meaning there would
be no capital cost to Tesla in scaling their network. They just need to be
able to produce enough Model 3s and get autonomy working. Then they can take
profits from both the sale of the car and the clip of the car sharing network.

~~~
kbob
Is LIDAR actually better than video? If I understand LIDAR correctly, it gives
a 1D array of depth data and is fairly limited in either resolution or speed.
Video provides much more data at higher speed, and it seems like it'd be
easier to identify objects from 2D color images. Stereo (never mind eight
cameras) can be used to derive depth information.

But I'm not a practitioner, so educate me. How does LIDAR beat video?

~~~
jfoster
I was quoting the article, but I think LIDAR is a bit more like having a 3D
model of the world around the vehicle. The processing of a 1D array into a
usable point cloud is not of concern at the frontier of autonomous vehicle
research.

My understanding is that the main reason Tesla would choose video instead is
that cameras are super-cheap in comparison to LIDAR, and theoretically good
enough if you have AI that can understand what the cameras are seeing. I have
a feeling that Musk is pushing OpenAI toward researching the technology that
Tesla will need to make their approach work. I hope they are successful; it is
probably the fastest path toward ubiquitous autonomous vehicles. It's likely
that Waymo can get theirs working faster, but they can't scale the
distribution side as fast as Tesla could.

------
twic
> There’s an old car industry joke that you can see the organization chart of
> a car company in the dashboard, and also see that the steering wheel team
> hates the gear stick team.

So, Conway's Law then! Can anyone tell us more about this car industry adage?

~~~
cagenut
yea I loved seeing that but a quick googling didn't net me anything more.

------
mrfusion
If batteries are getting so cheap why isn’t anyone making battery powered:
chainsaws, full size vacuum cleaners, jet skis, ride on mowers? All of those
would be revolutionary.

~~~
larkinrichards
Most tool brands (milwaukee, dewalt, ryobi) are transitioning from tool
companies to battery companies. Lots of cheap tools and expensive batteries.

Also, battery powered chainsaws (husqvarna is well regarded for their
chainsaws): [https://www.husqvarna.com/us/products/chainsaws/536li-
xp/966...](https://www.husqvarna.com/us/products/chainsaws/536li-
xp/966729174/)

battery powered riding lawnmowers (ryobi not well known for ride-on mowers):
[https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-38-in-75-Ah-Battery-
Electr...](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-38-in-75-Ah-Battery-Electric-
Rear-Engine-Riding-Lawn-Mower-RY48110/300246266)

~~~
kelchm
Battery powered chainsaws are definitely a thing and actually work pretty
well, even on medium sized trees. Not needing hearing protection is a huge
benefit in my opinion.

~~~
amluto
And DeWalt makes an excellent battery powered leaf blower.

------
iabacu
Autonomous driving is such a big opportunity, that trying to do it wihtout
LIDARs is a giant premature optimization.

Just like trying to make fully automated assembly plants.

Whatever edge it may give on sensor cost savings in the long run, it has a
steep penalty in time to market.

Even if eventually they make it without LIDARs, guess what? The competitors
with successful fleets won’t be too far behind.

~~~
Latteland
If lidar was available for a few thousand, I think they would have used it.
But it was much much more expensive in 2012 when I got my first one. Now they
are kind of committed because they promised it would work for the generation
2.5 hardware in the model 3. So if they can't make it work, they'd have to
refund 5k for a lot of sellers, or pay for upgrading to new hardware. I have
gen 2 hardware, but I kind of doubt that it will be enough for autodriving.

------
justicezyx
"When many car company people look at a Tesla, they see a not-great car with
some cool features that they’re going to build too, being produced at a small
fraction of the volumes they’re selling. “Look at the fit and finish, and the
panel gaps, and the tent!” "

Is this the basis of the article?

The earliest Tesla car is rodster right? THAT IS A GREAT CAR in every aspect,
right?...

~~~
olivermarks
The earliest Tesla was a Lotus Elise with an electric motor and batteries
installed by Tesla

~~~
Latteland
But I think a lot of people are stuck on that earlier car and don't get the
engineering capability that Tesla has built over time.

