
Musk Can’t Dodge Tesla Cash Woes Any Longer - cohaagen
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-01/-math-doesn-t-lie-musk-can-t-dodge-tesla-cash-woes-any-longer
======
brianpgordon
> a fleet of self-driving vehicles that will make their way into the robotaxi
> service as soon as next year.

So... are we living on the same planet? Does Musk seriously think that Tesla
will have solved full autonomous driving, with no LIDAR, and have
commercialized a functioning robotaxi service, by _next year_? This is so far
outside of the realm of possibility that it's like saying he's going to Pluto
next week.

~~~
DennisP
I've always been skeptical of skipping LIDAR, but a recent study at Cornell
found that with binocular vision they could be almost as accurate as LIDAR,
but with much cheaper hardware.

[https://www.therobotreport.com/researchers-back-teslas-
non-l...](https://www.therobotreport.com/researchers-back-teslas-non-lidar-
approach-to-self-driving-cars/)

~~~
Judgmentality
That study has been highly disputed by people in the field; the methodology is
questionable at best for the claims they're making.

~~~
Reedx
Perhaps, but you can't dispute that humans don't have LIDAR.

It's just a matter of time before AI can drive better than humans even if
using similar vision. Especially in aggregate (e.g., factoring in distracted
drivers).

~~~
moogly
Humans don't only have vision. Humans have an ocular-vestibular system that
makes it possible to perform SLAM[1]-like processing; when in motion, your
balance and visual input like the parallax effect can help the brain build a
mapped 3D volume and determine your position, orientation and velocity and
your relation to other objects within that volume.

VSLAM, visual SLAM, which is what you have to employ if relying largely on
vision-only, is so far cruder than that.

I'm sure Tesla has some sensor fusion that also employs GPS and short-range
radar/ultrasonar to help.

You can get some velocity and positional data through GPS, but it will have
quite a lot of latency and is very coarse (at least the commercially
accessible part).

SLAM is much, much easier to do with LIDAR since that will give you a point
cloud 3D model. With VSLAM, you have to infer the depth data and build it up
over time, and it's a much harder problem to solve reliably. OTOH, LIDAR's
Achilles heel is, however, heavy rain/sleet/snow. Waymo has shown off using
deep learning to filter the bulk of the noise out, but it looks like it's
still early days there.

Vision isn't great for sleet/snow either, to be fair.

[1]: simultaneous localization and mapping

~~~
tim333
Tesla had a vid of their system doing that quite well
[https://youtu.be/Ucp0TTmvqOE?t=8324](https://youtu.be/Ucp0TTmvqOE?t=8324)

------
sunstone
This article is a little disingenuous. The margins on model3's have been
reported at 20% and they've been hugely successful in the market.

So now it makes sense to ramp up in China, in Europe and Japan etc. This
obviously takes upfront investment before the product can be produced. All
companies with a popular product face this kind of financing hurdle.

The difference now is that the end game of the automotive industry is now a
fair bit clearer than it was even a few years ago. Most of the pieces are on
the table you just have to put them together. Musk understands this, it
appears that most other automotive makers are still in denial.

Tesla will need a _lot_ more financing before this game is done. Telsa is the
current favorite, and up one set to nil, but with a lot of game left to play.

------
Nokinside
Musk has done amazing things but his amazing ability to take risk and leverage
is something that prevents me from investing into his business. The tech he is
business develops is here to stay but investors may not get the return they
want. There is endless stream of new ideas while not delivering fully on the
old ideas (for the investors).

Tesla bet it's financial future into being able to mass produce Model 3
profitably in large quantities. The amount of debt Tesla has prevents them
from retreating into smaller scale luxury cars. When Model 3 is in trouble,
lets move to the taxi-scheme.

They have to dilute the stocks again and again and current owners see less of
the (possible) future profits.

There will be some kind of economic slowdown or correction in the next few
years. Tesla has maybe one more financing round left until the music stops.

~~~
martythemaniak
Tesla has gone ~15x since IPO. Unlike virtually every other tech-related IPO,
it was possible for retail investors to invest in a risky, growth-oriented
company. They IPO'ed at a 2.2B cap, meanwhile all major tech-related IPOs seem
to be about 10B.

If you're a retail investor looking for high risk/high reward stocks, Tesla
was a rare exception. In most other cases, only large funds have access to
growth companies like that. I'd like to see more IPOs like Tesla's, rather
than reserving wealth growth only for those with tons of money.

In short, if you're not interested in taking advantage of an option, don't
assume other people think the same way.

Also, the robotaxi is not some zany idea Musk randomly came up. It's been
publicly on their website for 3 years now and in their internal road maps for
long before that: [https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/blog/master-plan-part-
deux](https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/blog/master-plan-part-deux)

It's really bizarre to see the constant condemnation of Musk, because he
chooses to have an ambitions long-term plan and follow through with it.

~~~
Nokinside
If you a retail investor looking for high risk/high reward stocks, Tesla today
is not what Tesla was during IPO. The need for more money and future stock
dilution means that risk is significantly higher but reward is going to be
lower.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> risk is significantly higher but reward is going to be lower.

Is that not true for all companies as they grow?

~~~
freeone3000
No; Microsoft (for instance) today is much less riskier than Microsoft in
1988. It likely won't experience meteoric growth, but neither is it likely to
crash tomorrow. Ideally, risk/reward are inversely correlated.

------
MaupitiBlue
Anyone with a scintilla of intuition about human behavior would have
recognized at least a year ago that Musk was begging for a way out of Tesla.
The talks he gave about how overworked he was, the tweets, and the violation
of the judge’s orders screamed out that he had given up.

~~~
manicdee
He wants a way out of Tesla being a publicly listed company. If you had
listened to him as much as you want to think you have you’d know his stress is
due to obligations to shareholders and effectively working with one hand tied
behind his back because as far as the board is concerned shareholder value is
more important than anything else.

~~~
MaupitiBlue
I didn’t claim I had listened to him much. I remember his “Skynet is coming”
remarks at the national governors association, and prior to warning about AI
he made some rather sad comments about how the stress was getting to be too
much for him. Watch it on YouTube. It was clear that he was at a breaking
point. Not to mention the Rogan interview.

I think Musk realized some time ago that Tesla was going to get close, but
just shy of long term profitability. He’s looking for a way out that doesn’t
involve him saying “uncle”.

------
bryanlarsen
Ford has $150B in debt. Toyota has double that.

~~~
rmah
Yes, but Ford has revenues of $160B and Toyota has revenues of $2,642B vs
Tesla's $21B. More importantly, both Toyota and Ford are profitable. In fact,
both Ford and Toyota have profits larger than Tesla's entire revenue stream.

~~~
hef19898
And I would assume a better, read positive, cash flow. Then debt is not such a
big problem.

