Ken retweeted
If you already have both X Premium+ and SuperGrok Heavy, you can cancel your paid Premium+ subscription. Your complimentary Premium+ included with SuperGrok Heavy will automatically continue at the end of your current billing period – no gap in benefits.
Ken retweeted
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety.
We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.
Ken retweeted
Unlike an Uber the 'Pick Me Up' starts the flow: an available car begins its transit to you immediately, reducing wait time. After this you pick the destination, while the car is on the way.
This works because there is no sensitivity to destination, like a Uber driver. The car doesn't care.
FSD Supervised ride-hailing service is live for an early set of employees in Austin & San Francisco Bay Area.
We've completed over 1.5k trips & 15k miles of driving.
This service helps us develop & validate FSD networks, the mobile app, vehicle allocation, mission control & remote assistance operations
Ken retweeted
NEWS: ARK Invest has released their new $TSLA price target.
ARK's base $TSLA price target is $2,600 for 2029, which would be an $8.3 trillion market cap. They also laid out a $3,100/share bull case scenario ($9.9 trillion market cap).
Full report: ark-invest.com/articles/valu…
Ken retweeted
Rundown of what we have achieved since 2018 – under @elonmusk's leadership
–
2018
– Hit 5k Model 3/week
– Model 3 becomes best-selling EV in the US
– Giga Nevada reached annual battery production rate of 20 GWh
– Launched Navigate on Autopilot
– Model 3 becomes the best-selling EV globally
2019
– First deliveries of Model 3 to Europe & China
– Unveiled Model Y
– Unveiled Cybertruck
– Gigafactory Shanghai begins production – just 11 months after breaking ground
– Delivered >367k vehicles globally
– Energy storage surpasses 3.2 GWh deployed globally cumulatively, with 1.65 GWh deployed that year
– Solar Roof V3 launched
– 4k+ new Supercharger stalls installed
2020
– 4680 cell announced at Battery Day
– Tesla becomes most valuable carmaker (>$400 billion market cap)
– Achieved full-year profitability for the first time in company history
– Almost 500k vehicles delivered globally
– 3.02 GWh of energy storage deployed
– Model Y production begins at Fremont
– Giga Shanghai reaches 250k annual production rate
– Launched FSD Beta
– Supercharger network expands to over 23k stalls
– Model 3 becomes world's best-selling premium sedan in Q4
2021
– Delivered >930k vehicles globally
– Energy storage deployments reached 3.99 GWh
– Achieved record annual revenue of $53.8 billion & record annual profit of $5.5 billion
– Unveiled Optimus
– Launched new Model S & X
– 1 millionth Model 3 produced
– Started opening global Supercharger network to all EVs
– 30k+ Supercharger stalls operational worldwide
2022
– Started Model Y deliveries at Giga Berlin & Giga Texas
– Record >1.3 million vehicles delivered that year
– Produced 1 millionth 4680 cell
– First production Semi trucks delivered to PepsiCo.
– Enabled anyone in the US & Canada who has purchased FSD to request FSD Beta
– Model S Plaid sets production car lap record at Nürburgring
– Over 16 GWh of energy storage deployed cumulatively
– Over 40k Supercharger stalls worldwide
– Tesla Insurance expands to multiple US states
2023
– Model Y becomes world's bestselling car
– 1 million Tesla vehicles on the road in Europe
– 20 millionth 4680 cell produced
– 5k/builds production rate hit at Giga Berlin & Giga Texas
– Giga Shanghai reaches production capacity
– 12k+ new Supercharger stalls opened
– Tesla charging connector adopted as NACS
– Powerwall installations started in 4 new countries & 500k installations completed globally
– Launched Powerwall 3
– Upgraded Model 3 launched in Europe & Asia
– First deliveries of @Cybertruck
– Energy storage deployments surpass 31 GWh cumulative
– Optimus Gen 2 unveiled
– 50k+ Supercharger stalls operational globally
– Launched V4 Supercharger posts
2024
– FSD Supervised using end-to-end neural networks rolls out to customers who have purchased or are subscribed to FSD in the US & Canada
– Upgraded Model 3 deliveries start in North America
– Hit 600k Powerwalls installed globally
– Model Y achieves highest possible safety rating by IIHS
– Produced our 6 millionth vehicle
– Hit >1 billion miles driven on FSD
– Cybertruck production hits 1k/week builds
– 4680 ramp continues successfully
– Developed 3 major design revisions of Optimus & 4 revisions of the hand in the last two years, with Optimus autonomously navigating daily in our office & labs
– Deployed two Optimus bots performing tasks in the factory autonomously
(and it's only June...) :)
To be continued!
Ken retweeted
Yeah, seeing it everywhere.
Btw, 12.4 goes to internal release this weekend and limited external beta next week. Roughly 5X to 10X improvement in miles per intervention vs 12.3.
12.5 will be out in late June. Will also see a major improvement in mpi and is single stack – no more implicit stack on highways.
Ken retweeted
Must read article about mapping in China... facinating
Every map of China is wrong
medium.com/@anastasia.bizyay…
Ken retweeted
Robotaxi Implications - First, Second & Third Order
I recently had an in-depth discussion about this with Herbert Ong (video link in the comments below), but here are some highlights...
1) It fundamentally changes Tesla's business model. Wall Street will need to fire the auto analysts that cover Tesla and find some smart technology analysts.
2) Over time, as the cost per mile/ cost per trip comes down, it will undercut Rideshare - unlocking a multi-trillion dollar addressable market.
3) Over time, robotaxis will undercut public transportation - not necessarily because it's cheaper, but potentially much more convenient.
With public transaction you often can't go directly from point A to point B. You have to walk in the rain/snow/heat to get to a bus stop, wait for the bus, take the bus to a train station, walk to the train, wait for the train, ... you get the idea. Robotaxis make the trip much more efficient.
Also, over time a network of Boring Company tunnels with autonomous vehicles could further relieve congestion on surface streets - this could be very helpful in those cities where billions have not been invested in massive subway networks.
continued...
Ken retweeted
RFK Jr. is - BY FAR - the best candidate between him, Biden, and Trump in my opinion.
I'm sick and tired of the two party system. Enough is enough.
RFK Jr. has my vote for President of the US in 2024.
Ken retweeted
Residential roads in general are a great example of where the end-to-end architecture shines. In the previous stack, we trained the lane graph network to produce a spatial network of lanes, which would be fed to the explicit planner. But in many of these residential areas, the concept of a "lane" is highly contextual, which can break some fundamental assumptions and lead to indecision and unnecessary jerkiness.
Another example is objects. Let's say you see some light poking through some trees — it's a challenge to handle the *possibility* of an object being there in explicit if-this-then-do-that code. On the other hands, human drivers reason about the world much more fluidly and probabilistically, which our photon-to-control network naturally learns to do as well.
Ken retweeted
I should note that the Tesla board is great. The reason for no new “compensation plan” is that we are still waiting for a decision in my Delaware compensation case. The trial for that was held in 2022, but a verdict has yet to be made.
I put “compensation plan” in quotes, because, from my standpoint, this is primarily about ensuring the right amount of voting influence at Tesla.
If I have 25%, it means I am influential, but can be overridden if twice as many shareholders vote against me vs for me.
At 15% or lower, the for/against ratio to override me makes a takeover by dubious interests too easy.
I would be fine with a dual class voting structure to achieve this, but am told it is impossible to achieve post-IPO in Delaware.
Ken retweeted
Giga Shanghai operates a 95% automated production line, enabling a cycle time of less than 40 seconds!
From taking 2.5 years for the first million cars to be produced, the second million was done in just 12 months 🚘🪄
Ken retweeted
How X is changing The Game.
Yesterday I had a great, hour-long phone conversation with @garyblack00 on the future of X and @elonmusk's approach on building the platform. It was a vigorous debate, where he and I commonly landed on opposite sides of the aisle but with full understanding of each other’s positions.
The conversation really helped me understand how folks like Gary are viewing the evolution of X. Gary’s background includes branding and media, so it was tremendously helpful for me to understand how someone like him views X’s decisions from the lens of an industry veteran.
It also helped me crystalize my thoughts on what X is doing to the media landscape, and as I talked through it with Gary, a number of things clicked for me (and I think for Gary as well, although I’m not sure if I changed his mind on any of it 🙂)
To illustrate this, I’d like to use an example that’s all too familiar to folks that follow the Tesla story closely - the often-times negative slant that Legacy Media appears to take in relation to anything Tesla related, and by proxy anything Elon related.
In my conversation, Gary laid out a dynamic that commonly plays out in Legacy media. We will call this The Game. The game has 7 parts.
1) A story is identified related to Tesla, either by a journalist or by a competitor to Tesla that is “fed” it to the journalist. These stories often have a “negative” slant to them. “Tesla safety is suffering”. “Tesla sales are suffering”. “Tesla range is worse than expected”. Etc.
2) In the world of media, you are more likely to draw eyeballs to your publication if you run a story that has a negative/fearful slant. Human beings are naturally more likely to click on things that create fear mainly due to our survival mechanism as a species. Test this out yourself next time you click on a YouTube video or article - which one draws your attention more. A negative headline or positive one?
3) As the publication is writing the story, they will reach out to the party in question - ie Tesla - asking for comment on said story so that they can capture “all sides”.
4) Because Tesla has no Public Relations (PR) department, the publications are met with silence, at which point they are almost “forced” to run the story without comment from Tesla.
5) This commonly results in a story that is crafted to maximize views for the publication, yet doesn’t have the “full picture” because of Tesla’s lack of PR.
6)This upsets everyone involved at Tesla, both directly and fans/investors of the company.
7)The cycle repeats.
Under this scenario, Gary’s solution is that Tesla should invest in a PR department so that they can have representation in The Game.
If we use an analogy, what I just described is a game of football between the Legacy Media journalists, Tesla’s Competition, and Tesla. In one scenario, Tesla’s competition is one team, while Tesla is the other. The football itself is the journalist. In another scenario, Tesla is one team, while the Journalist is the other team. The football is the story.
If Tesla doesn’t field a team, their opposition will constantly score touchdowns. Gary’s position is that this is what’s happening today. Tesla is not playing the game, and they are suffering in the eyes of the public because of it.
There are also situations where the journalist and the competition to Tesla are on the same team, and Tesla would have to face two teams. But let’s be nice and give Legacy Media the benefit of the doubt.
A simple solution to playing The Game would be for Tesla to field a team. In theory this would be a low-cost, low-effort investment by the company related to the rest of the business. Tesla can make itself available at all times to Legacy Media publications looking to run a story, and they can always have representation in Legacy Media.
However, this is where Gary and I spent most of our time disagreeing. Gary thinks that Tesla’s ability to play The Game should be a no brainer, because it’s a low cost, low effort, high reward investment, mainly due to the amount of eyeballs on Legacy media, and its ability to shift public opinion. Add the fact that it would require no more than a 5 to 10 person team, which would be a fraction of a fraction of a % of Tesla’s yearly net income.
However, I strongly disagree with this assessment because, in my opinion, The Game is fundamentally rigged, and it shouldn't be played.
Have you ever played a game where you felt the rules were unfair? This is how I perceive the landscape of Legacy media.
As described, Legacy media is more akin to a Propaganda as a Service company. If you are a company that has invested heavily in Public Relations, Legacy media is more likely to run stories that are beneficial to your cause. If you are a company that has no investments in PR, you are at a massive disadvantage. If you depend on the journalist and editor to be neutral as it pertains to the story, you are in a world of hurt because the publication is heavily dependent on eyeballs. Eyeballs come at a much higher rate from negative/fearful stories.
Therefore, if one is dependent on a journalist and editor to be neutral and exercise “journalistic integrity”, in this day where media publications are desperate for revenue, you are going to experience nothing but pain.
Therefore, by default. The Game is not fair. It is heavily influenced by companies that have invested in Public Relations, and given today’s day of how media is monetized, it does not pay to be neutral. It pays to be inflammatory.
This is where X comes in.
Have you ever heard the saying “don’t hate the player, hate the game”? I think Elon has taken this to heart, and he’s saying screw the game, I’m going to make my own game.
The new game in this case is a platform where the dynamic of companies capable of crafting narratives in the eyes of the public through PR and Legacy media (Propaganda as a Service companies) is eliminated. Instead of folks relying on Legacy publications to get their information, the vision is they will come to X to get it straight from the source.
No middle man Legacy media outlet. No journalist looking to write a story to bring eyeballs to a publication. No PR department that can craft a narrative by leveraging Legacy media’s megaphone. None of that - it’s all from the source, directly to your eyes and ears, with Community Notes as a layer to minimize deception and maximize truth.
Under this scenario, X is Legacy Media’s biggest competitor. Therefore, it should surprise no one when we see stories of X's perceived demise in Legacy media. There's a negative incentive for Legacy media to run positive stories related to X.
Now, there are two variables that need to be solved for X to be successful in creating this New Game - bring as many eyeballs to X so that your viewership exceeds that of Legacy media by an order of magnitude or more, and ensure that you can fund your operations while you execute your goal.
If we look at X’s long-term strategic goal as it moved from public to private, the company is looking to minimize its reliance on advertiser revenues to fund the company, and is looking to diversify its revenue streams with financial services, subscriptions, AI tools, marketplace, etc. The thought here is to remove the risk of “saying the wrong thing” destroying your ability to stay alive as a business.
In a world where X is the Free Speech platform, this is not only important, but necessary.
Perhaps with this knowledge in mind, it shouldn’t be a surprise Elon is not afraid to post controversial stuff on X. Perhaps he’s training the team to get used to this new world ;)
However, in order to gauge if this strategy will be successful, one needs to look no further than Elon’s two biggest ventures - Tesla and SpaceX.
Tesla’s success with little to no advertising speaks for itself. So does SpaceX, sending 80% of the earth’s mass to orbit in 2023, with that number likely to get larger with the launch of Starship. We can also throw PayPal in there as well, the venture that allowed Elon to gather all his resources and nearly lose it all with the founding of Tesla and SpaceX.
As X continues to build out its product offering, optimize its UI, and maximize for what the company calls “unregretted user minutes” on the platform, it should achieve both goals of bringing more eyeballs to the platform and become profitable without reliance on advertiser revenue.
We’re already seeing that the platform has more users today than when the acquisition closed a little over a year ago, so the trend is already going in this direction. And as financial and AI services continue to launch, X's ability to raise funds to keep the company running should quickly follow.
And in due time, if execution remains high, my prediction is that what we call The Game today will disappear, and instead we’ll live in a world where there’ll be a New Game in town.
This game will feature individual voices much more prominently. Citizen journalism will carry a premium. Companies that are willing to engage their customers directly will have an outsized advantage. And folks that continue to force the rules of the Old Game will continually look out of touch and impossible to trust, mainly due to the fact that X will house what’s actually going on, instead of what will obviously be a “PR funded” piece.
Elon Musk disrupted the Space industry. He disrupted the Auto industry. And now with X, it is becoming increasingly clear that he’s disrupting the Media industry.
I want to give a huge thanks to Gary for being so kind with his time yesterday. I was able to go to battle with my ideas vs his. It really highlights how important it is to surround yourself with people that you respect that can constantly challenge you.
And all of this is already happening right here on X. Shouldn’t that be a clue?
