Tesla Milestone: 5 Millionth Car Manufactured

[JeffKeryk]

There are different ways, but obviously Tesla is heavily software based, as opposed to automotive electronics that tend to be customized for specific applications. That being said, all these little SoC chips in a modern car typically run on an operating system with firmware.

Military electronics these days are heavily reliant on FPGAs to do the things that were previously done with ASICs and SoCs. There were reports that the US Navy bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of FPGAs as spare parts for F-35s - since the parts were being phased out. They should be stable in storage for decades. FPGAs might not be so practical with cars since they cost more, don't have as high performance (in small form factors), and use up considerably more power. But for something that's only made in the hundreds to thousands, it's a practical solution.

Years ago, NASA or DoD contractors might use ASICs for production runs of maybe just a few hundred. FPGAs have been around for a while, but never really that high performance.

Apparently Tesla is developing some FPGAs - especially for specific applications like self-driving. They're getting customized FPGAs, but I suppose where hardware functions can be remapped and not just firmware being reprogrammed.

https://www.techpowerup.com/254820/...igns-and-deploys-its-own-self-driving-ai-chip

Tesla's FSD software just might make them the most valuable company in the world. It will be the standard and will be leased to everyone... We will just have to wait and see. Tech is leverage. Tesla is playing chess while everyone else is learning to play checkers.

 

[Trav]

Or hopefully bankrupt. LOL

 

[97prizm]

Yeah, when things are software based, they are subject to a whole new set of things that can go haywire. My neighbors, who are no strangers to EVs and are very computer savvy, thing our Model 3 is "too big brother".

But Tesla's customer satisfaction numbers are the envy of the auto industry. They must be doing something right, right?

Yes and no. If Tesla owners were smart and quit drinking the Kool-Aid things would change. Unfortunately Tesla owners are like the Heavens Gate or David Koresh Waco Texas cult. Elon is a diety and can do no wrong.
Actually over the last three years Tesla owners have jumped ship.
"Tesla owners' satisfaction declined. Even though the Austin-headquartered brand remains among the top scorers, tied with BMW at 878, its 2023 score is nine points lower than 2022. Its score plummeted in all 10 factors."
Tesla's satisfaction and customers that would purchase another Tesla again have slipped every year for the last four years. I really hope Tesla goes under. Elon is an absolute moron, his ADHD has started to effect the company. This past week he tweeted that Twitter (X) could go under by the middle of 2024.

 

[97prizm]

Tesla's FSD software just might make them the most valuable company in the world. It will be the standard and will be leased to everyone... We will just have to wait and see. Tech is leverage. Tesla is playing chess while everyone else is learning to play checkers.

Pss really? Tesla engineers have repeatedly said publicly that Tesla's have more accidents per mile after the Muskrat said radar was removed.

Ford BlueCruise, GM SuperCruise ranked as best Driver Assistance systems, Tesla Autopilot ranks 7th​

When Teslarati the "Tesla is king" website says this
"
Ford’s BlueCruise and General Motors’ SuperCruise were ranked in the top two spots in Consumer Reports’ recent analysis of twelve Active Driving Assistance Systems, while Tesla Autopilot was ranked seventh.

Among the manufacturers involved in the study, Ford and GM performed better than Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota/Lexus, Volkswagen/Audi, Tesla, Rivian, Nissan/Infinity, Honda/Acura, Volvo/Polestar, and Hyundai/Kia/Genesis. Ford and GM’s driver monitoring systems were also lauded during CR’s 2022 testing.


Systems were tested around a track at CR’s Auto Test Center and on a 50-mile loop on public roads from September to December 2022. Each system had forty separate tests, and was evaluated in five specific categories: capability and performance, keeping the driver engaged, ease of use, clear when safe to use, and unresponsive driver.

According to the report directly from CR, Ford and GM’s ADAS options use “direct driver monitoring systems,” or DDMS, that require driver eyes to remain on the road, even while actions like steering, acceleration, and braking are being automated by the vehicles. These systems are crucial in CR’s grading scale, and the firm said it awards extra points to options that hold drivers accountable with DDMS. Additionally, systems that do not have DDMS will have points deducted."

 

[4wd]

Yes and no. If Tesla owners were smart and quit drinking the Kool-Aid things would change. Unfortunately Tesla owners are like the Heavens Gate or David Koresh Waco Texas cult. Elon is a diety and can do no wrong.
Actually over the last three years Tesla owners have jumped ship.
"Tesla owners' satisfaction declined. Even though the Austin-headquartered brand remains among the top scorers, tied with BMW at 878, its 2023 score is nine points lower than 2022. Its score plummeted in all 10 factors."
Tesla's satisfaction and customers that would purchase another Tesla again have slipped every year for the last four years. I really hope Tesla goes under. Elon is an absolute moron, his ADHD has started to effect the company. This past week he tweeted that Twitter (X) could go under by the middle of 2024.

 

[Torrid]

Yes and no. If Tesla owners were smart and quit drinking the Kool-Aid things would change. Unfortunately Tesla owners are like the Heavens Gate or David Koresh Waco Texas cult. Elon is a diety and can do no wrong.
Actually over the last three years Tesla owners have jumped ship.
"Tesla owners' satisfaction declined. Even though the Austin-headquartered brand remains among the top scorers, tied with BMW at 878, its 2023 score is nine points lower than 2022. Its score plummeted in all 10 factors."
Tesla's satisfaction and customers that would purchase another Tesla again have slipped every year for the last four years. I really hope Tesla goes under. Elon is an absolute moron, his ADHD has started to effect the company. This past week he tweeted that Twitter (X) could go under by the middle of 2024.

So they're drinking the Koolaid or they're jumping ship. Which one is it?

I swear some of you anti EV people aren't happy unless you can find some way to call an EV driver stupid. Somehow I'm the one that loses my cool and gets in trouble calling names, but this BS is fine...

 

[PandaBear]

Yes and no. If Tesla owners were smart and quit drinking the Kool-Aid things would change. Unfortunately Tesla owners are like the Heavens Gate or David Koresh Waco Texas cult. Elon is a diety and can do no wrong.
Actually over the last three years Tesla owners have jumped ship.
"Tesla owners' satisfaction declined. Even though the Austin-headquartered brand remains among the top scorers, tied with BMW at 878, its 2023 score is nine points lower than 2022. Its score plummeted in all 10 factors."
Tesla's satisfaction and customers that would purchase another Tesla again have slipped every year for the last four years. I really hope Tesla goes under. Elon is an absolute moron, his ADHD has started to effect the company. This past week he tweeted that Twitter (X) could go under by the middle of 2024.

This is normal. The initial buyers are always enthusiast and more forgiving. As you grow your base you will always get less satisfied customers as all the "low hanging fruits" are picked.

If Mercedes / BMWs / Porsche are sold like Toyotas, they would be bashed beyond believe as well, even if the cars stay the same.

 

[PandaBear]

Tesla's FSD software just might make them the most valuable company in the world. It will be the standard and will be leased to everyone... We will just have to wait and see. Tech is leverage. Tesla is playing chess while everyone else is learning to play checkers.

They are not the only one doing self driving, and as you drive around San Francisco you probably already notice 5x more Waymo and Cruise cars going non stop with engineers gathering data and test driving in all conditions vs Tesla relying on customers doing its own thing instead of testing corner cases (3am, foggy day, luna eclipse, drunk vandalism, maybe even a couple armed robbers firing at it).

My money is on Waymo, Cruise, UPS, FedEx ahead of Tesla.

 

[PandaBear]

There are different ways, but obviously Tesla is heavily software based, as opposed to automotive electronics that tend to be customized for specific applications. That being said, all these little SoC chips in a modern car typically run on an operating system with firmware.

Military electronics these days are heavily reliant on FPGAs to do the things that were previously done with ASICs and SoCs. There were reports that the US Navy bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of FPGAs as spare parts for F-35s - since the parts were being phased out. They should be stable in storage for decades. FPGAs might not be so practical with cars since they cost more, don't have as high performance (in small form factors), and use up considerably more power. But for something that's only made in the hundreds to thousands, it's a practical solution.

Years ago, NASA or DoD contractors might use ASICs for production runs of maybe just a few hundred. FPGAs have been around for a while, but never really that high performance.

Apparently Tesla is developing some FPGAs - especially for specific applications like self-driving. They're getting customized FPGAs, but I suppose where hardware functions can be remapped and not just firmware being reprogrammed.

https://www.techpowerup.com/254820/...igns-and-deploys-its-own-self-driving-ai-chip

Performance isn't the only thing. For mature products it makes sense to use ASIC. Gas engine ECU are mature, ABS and airbags control are mature. Self driving is not, and therefore you may risk designing a chip that needs to be scrapped, or use either software to operates the system (to a certain extend you can still have hardware acceleration engine to speed things up), or design the whole logic in hardware and then dump it on FPGA, without risking any hardware design mistakes.

Telecom use FPGA in most of the cell tower equipments, as standard changes are expected every several years they don't want to replace equipments. These days they just use standardized card on x86 processors based system like a PC, or even have the analog signal digitized then send them to a data center and let the data center's FPGA handle it, maybe even renting these systems on demand and they can be used for ASIC design verification / simulation when not being used as cell tower equipment (if they run the same FPGA chip or cards) during off peak hours.

Tesla isn't doing anything others cannot do, they just do it because of their economy of scale and volume. As I said before, selling 10k unit a month is very different than selling 10M unit a month, and designing for a 20k car is very different than designing for a 50k car.

Tesla's FSD chip is sort of a DSP/ FPGA combo. So it is kind of interesting as they are combining 2 very different kind of chips together and the FPGA is likely used to reroute / glue the MUL/ADD together for AI / ML use. I "think" if the market is there AMD (ATI) / Xilinx can do it, and if Intel / Altera isn't mismanaged they would totally be able to do it. My gut feeling is Elon do it himself because nVidia is selling all its AI chips at ridiculous price already (H100 is almost $10k each, no way would it be cheap enough for Model 3).

 

[Trav]

Tesla has other issues that they are trying to possibly coverup with statements like...

"likely fraudulent" and "misrepresent the capabilities of Tesla’s technology."

Anyone that believes that allowing a remote entity to control every system in the vehicle at will is safe from being hacked especially when the CCP is as deeply involved in a company is only fooling themselves IMO.

https://www.reuters.com/business/au...hild-dummies-taken-down-by-safety-2022-08-25/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/business/china-tesla-electric-cars.html

 

[y_p_w]

Performance isn't the only thing. For mature products it makes sense to use ASIC. Gas engine ECU are mature, ABS and airbags control are mature. Self driving is not, and therefore you may risk designing a chip that needs to be scrapped, or use either software to operates the system (to a certain extend you can still have hardware acceleration engine to speed things up), or design the whole logic in hardware and then dump it on FPGA, without risking any hardware design mistakes.

Telecom use FPGA in most of the cell tower equipments, as standard changes are expected every several years they don't want to replace equipments. These days they just use standardized card on x86 processors based system like a PC, or even have the analog signal digitized then send them to a data center and let the data center's FPGA handle it, maybe even renting these systems on demand and they can be used for ASIC design verification / simulation when not being used as cell tower equipment (if they run the same FPGA chip or cards) during off peak hours.

Tesla isn't doing anything others cannot do, they just do it because of their economy of scale and volume. As I said before, selling 10k unit a month is very different than selling 10M unit a month, and designing for a 20k car is very different than designing for a 50k car.

Tesla's FSD chip is sort of a DSP/ FPGA combo. So it is kind of interesting as they are combining 2 very different kind of chips together and the FPGA is likely used to reroute / glue the MUL/ADD together for AI / ML use. I "think" if the market is there AMD (ATI) / Xilinx can do it, and if Intel / Altera isn't mismanaged they would totally be able to do it. My gut feeling is Elon do it himself because nVidia is selling all its AI chips at ridiculous price already (H100 is almost $10k each, no way would it be cheap enough for Model 3).

DSP hard cells have been in FGPAs for a while.

I believe Tesla is getting their custom FPGAs from Achronix.

I remember when I was first learning about FPGAs, the basic building block of a Xilinx FGPA was a 2:1 MUX. But today there might be something specific built in like a DRAM interface, a serial interface, or a processor.

And how much the US Navy was spending on buying up end of life FPGA was less than hundreds of millions of dollars. And there will likely be a time when they run out of their stockpile and they’ll be redesigned with newer components. I heard that NASA was at least thinking of replacing the Space Shuttle main computer with FPGAs. A lot of the computing was from the 70s and by the 90s, FPGAs were likely better performance with Moore’s Law and everything.

 

[JeffKeryk]

They are not the only one doing self driving, and as you drive around San Francisco you probably already notice 5x more Waymo and Cruise cars going non stop with engineers gathering data and test driving in all conditions vs Tesla relying on customers doing its own thing instead of testing corner cases (3am, foggy day, luna eclipse, drunk vandalism, maybe even a couple armed robbers firing at it).

My money is on Waymo, Cruise, UPS, FedEx ahead of Tesla.

They only drive in SF because they are mapped to do so. That's not the same thing.

 

[UncleDave]

They only drive in SF because they are mapped to do so. That's not the same thing.

Correct Waymo is geofenced. It will not work at all outside SF/ geofenced area.

Supercruise is also geofenced - last I checked it was good for about 5% of the roads in the US.

FSD got nicked in the 22 CR report disproportionately not because of its performance - because it didn't have as many driver monitoring disconnects which it now does.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Yes and no. If Tesla owners were smart and quit drinking the Kool-Aid things would change. Unfortunately Tesla owners are like the Heavens Gate or David Koresh Waco Texas cult. Elon is a diety and can do no wrong.
Actually over the last three years Tesla owners have jumped ship.
"Tesla owners' satisfaction declined. Even though the Austin-headquartered brand remains among the top scorers, tied with BMW at 878, its 2023 score is nine points lower than 2022. Its score plummeted in all 10 factors."
Tesla's satisfaction and customers that would purchase another Tesla again have slipped every year for the last four years. I really hope Tesla goes under. Elon is an absolute moron, his ADHD has started to effect the company. This past week he tweeted that Twitter (X) could go under by the middle of 2024.

Kinda hard to follow your logic. If the Muskrat is so bad, why has he reached the pinnacle of wealth? He is the richest person in the world.
If Tesla is so bad, why is it the most valuable car company, by far, in the world? Worth more then the next 10+ car companies combined...

I'm not sure I should follow your business sense...

 

[Vercingetorix]

If the Muskrat is so bad, why has he reached the pinnacle of wealth? He is the richest person in the world.

I am a truly terrible person because I have no money.

 

[demarpaint]

Kinda hard to follow your logic. If the Muskrat is so bad, why has he reached the pinnacle of wealth? He is the richest person in the world.
If Tesla is so bad, why is it the most valuable car company, by far, in the world? Worth more then the next 10+ car companies combined...

I'm not sure I should follow your business sense...

I have to carefully pick my words. Here goes: Take away the $7,500 tax credit, the asinine unrealistic push to go all electric by 2035 in areas like NY and CA, etc., not hog tie the ICE makers with ridiculous EF goals, and things can change real fast. Trust me the Muskrat won't like that. The way I see it, it is being handed to him on a sliver platter. Oh and restore the oil industry the way it was a few years back. I'm quite certain you and a few others won't agree. But then again we usually don't agree.

 

[UncleDave]

I have to carefully pick my words. Here goes: Take away the $7,500 tax credit, the asinine unrealistic push to go all electric by 2035 in areas like NY and CA, etc., not hog tie the ICE makers with ridiculous EF goals, and things can change real fast. Trust me the Muskrat won't like that. The way I see it, it is being handed to him on a sliver platter. Oh and restore the oil industry the way it was a few years back. I'm quite certain you and a few others won't agree. But then again we usually don't agree.

2 things here - I agree with the 2035 asinine push perspective.

Tax credit removal killing sales was already tested and the outcome measured.
The Tesla product still sold like hotcakes even when the tax credit was fully depleted.

Does it have an effect? Sure. Will it kill electric sales totally nope.

 

[demarpaint]

2 things here - I agree with the 2035 asinine push perspective.

Tax credit removal killing sales was already tested and the outcome measured.
The Tesla product still sold like hotcakes even when the tax credit was fully depleted.

Does it have an effect? Sure. Will it kill electric sales totally nope.

IMO the incentive removal combined with the other points I made will slow them down considerably, kill? No, I didn't say or imply that, but there will be an uptick in ICE sales. Having said that, the way things are going now my wish list is not going to happen. Elon's ACE is in the hole. But one can still hope.

 

[JeffKeryk]

I have to carefully pick my words. Here goes: Take away the $7,500 tax credit, the asinine unrealistic push to go all electric by 2035 in areas like NY and CA, etc., not hog tie the ICE makers with ridiculous EF goals, and things can change real fast. Trust me the Muskrat won't like that. The way I see it, it is being handed to him on a sliver platter. Oh and restore the oil industry the way it was a few years back. I'm quite certain you and a few others won't agree. But then again we usually don't agree.

Well, Musk has said he is against subsidies, for whatever that's worth. I did get a subsidy with my car in Dec 2018, but I won't get another because now there is an income limit. I will say the tax credit was a factor in my decision to buy the car. Of course the same car would be far cheaper today.

If you are against subsidies, perhaps we should pull the Naval ships out of the Persian Gulf? What are we at, about $20B annually in big oil subsidies? More? How many times have we, the taxpayers, bailed out car companies? To your point, this is a big ol' shiny silver platter...

Your point is well taken. Personally I choose to support the workers at the Fremont plant which is right up the road. I am happy to see an American company leading the world in a major product market.

 

[JeffKeryk]

I am a truly terrible person because I have no money.

My point is, from a business standpoint, Musk has achieved incredible success. I am not sure why someone would suggest the BOD should fire him; that makes zero sense. Ask any market analyst; they will tell you the market's biggest concern surrounding Tesla is the loss of their leader.