Posted on 03/29/2018 7:07:08 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
“Moody’s said its negative outlook “reflects the likelihood that Tesla will have to undertake a large, near-term capital raise in order to refund maturing obligations and avoid a liquidity shortfall.”
It said Tesla’s weekly production target is now 2,500 Model 3 vehicles by the end of March, down sharply from its year-earlier target of 5,000 per week by the end of 2017.”
nuff said ...
“He’s sucking cash out of Solar City.”
an even bigger scam ... check out online ratings and reviews for “solar city” ...
The answer of course is that for the computer there are eons of time to make a decision. A thoughtful one that takes into account all the actions and situations. (Recall the scene in Terminator 1 — when someone knocks on the door and he refers to a drop down menu of possible responses.)
It is an important question as to what the computer should do. (I once decided to kill a raccoon rather than swerve on a freeway at night.) I never regretted the choice, and I basically had planned on this type of choice while practicing “defensive driving”. The car would be programmed to do the same. (This one was not that far along).
The point is that the car should have sensors that beat the human sight by a good margin,. (And I believe we will find out that it did but was not programmed with effective decisions. (Did the software go into a loop?)
We have a long way to go but the computer will get there.
“It is an important question as to what the computer should do. (I once decided to kill a raccoon rather than swerve on a freeway at night.) I never regretted the choice, and I basically had planned on this type of choice while practicing “defensive driving”. The car would be programmed to do the same.”
Ok... Now devise a computer vision system that can tell the difference between a large raccoon and a small toddler with as good accuracy as a human.
This is very similar to my thoughts on Tesla.
1. Tesla can’t compete with the big boys (Honda, Toyota, VW group, GM, Ford).
2. The big boys have more money for R&D, more money for engineering, better ability to subsidize electric development from other product lines, dealer networks, etc.
3. Tesla will either have to partner with one of the big companies (i.e. “Honda, powered by Tesla”), or they’ll have to sell their battery packs to all the manufacturers.
I just don’t see how they survive as a complete automobile manufacturer as they’ll never be able to out-pace electric development from the big companies if the big companies ever get really serious about electric cars. Quality is also important to car buyers and Tesla is well behind the curve; even Tesla fans admit to this.
Currently Solar Ciy can’t get enough batteries to meet their power wall sales. I wonder if that’s affecting Tesla production too.
That is not as much a job for software as for a sensor. But I believe it can be done.
Not an expert in AI but I understand the strides that are being made are advanced enough.
There are probably images that are border line, and the software would have to be told what to do about that as well.
In my case, the road was full of cars in all lanes, no chance to swerve or brake. If is was a human, I would have had to do the best braking job that I could and probably would still have run over. But at least I would have skid marks to back up my story.
Tesla has $230 million in convertible bonds maturing in November 2018 and $920 million in March 2019.
If Tesla does not go bankrupt before the convertible bonds mature, bond owners should receive at least the face value of the bonds. If Tesla stock is worth more than about $360 per share at maturity of the convertible bonds discussed here, those bonds should be worth more than face value. If Tesla goes bankrupt, the convertible bonds could become worthless... The 2021 bond gives the holder more time for the stock to potentially exceed $360 at the maturity date, but also more time for Tesla to potentially go bankrupt, in which case the bonds could be worthless. At a stock price of up to about $360 at maturity -- as long as Tesla had not gone bankrupt -- the bonds should pay off in full, at the face value of $1,000 each. If Tesla stock were worth $400 at the convertible bonds' maturity, owners of these "converts" should receive a payment of about $1100, or about 10 percent more than the approximately $360 conversion price ($400 is about 10 percent more than $360). In contrast, Tesla stockholders who had purchased $1,000 of stock at the current price of about $250 per share (i.e., about four shares) would own stock worth about $1,600 ($400 x 4 shares). Since $1,600 is a good bit more than $1,100, that's a clear reason for Tesla optimists to own the stock instead of the convertible bonds. Only if Tesla's stock price were well above $400 at the maturity date for the convertible bonds, would those "converts" provide significant upside.
Tesla Convertible Bonds: An Alternative To Tesla Stock | Apr.25.16 | Driscoll Consulting LLC
Thanks MarvinStinson. Model 3 production target is 2500/wk (357 a day) and actual production is a shade over 200 per day.
...His family says Huang complained about the Tesla's auto-pilot “before” the accident. ... Walter Huang's family tells Dan Noyes he took his Tesla to the dealer, complaining that — on multiple occasions — the auto-pilot veered toward that same barrier — the one his Model X hit on Friday when he died...
Dan Noyes also spoke and texted with Walter Huang's brother, Will, today. He confirmed Walter was on the way to work at Apple when he died.
He also makes a startling claim -- that before the crash, Walter complained "7-10 times the car would swivel toward that same exact barrier during auto-pilot. Walter took it into dealership addressing the issue, but they couldn't duplicate it there."
I feel sorry for the guys family but am quite amazed that the driver left it on AutoPilot when he passed the same barrier after multiple swerves towards it that couldn't be explained.
Being a hardware engineer, I would have put it on manual control along that stretch until someone could tell me what the software was “thinking”
If I had a car that was repeatedly trying to kill me, I would have been a little more forceful with the service rep. I had a car many years ago that popped out of 5th gear when I started a passing manuever on a 2 lane road. I took it into service the next day and they couldn’t find anything wrong. I drove it for some time and it did it again on the interstate. Took it back in and explaned the car is unsafe, so they did the warranty work.
AP was on at time of the accident. More details at the link.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/30/tesla-autopilot-was-on-during-deadly-mountain-view-crash/
Was this guy on his cellphone? I have to wonder. This guy was geeky enough to have a AutoPilot Tesla , but not enough common sense to watch where he was going !?!
From One Second To The Next A Film By Werner Herzog
Put the phone down!
The article said AP was set to minimum following distance and his hands were off the wheel. He may not have had time to react to whatever was going on in his lane of traffic. How he ended up hitting the gore point barrier is still conjecture at this point.
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