Slashdot Mirror
Tesla Autopilot Crisis Deepens With Loss of Third Autopilot Boss In 18 Months (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It is no secret that Tesla's Autopilot project is struggling. Last summer, we covered a report that Tesla was bleeding talent from its Autopilot division. Tesla Autopilot head Sterling Anderson quit Tesla at the end of 2016. His replacement was Chris Lattner, who had previously created the Swift programming language at Apple. But Lattner only lasted six months before departing last June. Now Lattner's replacement, Jim Keller, is leaving Tesla as well.
Keller was a well-known chip designer at AMD before he was recruited to lead Tesla's hardware engineering efforts for Autopilot in 2016. Keller has been working to develop custom silicon for Autopilot, potentially replacing the Nvidia chips being used in today's Tesla vehicles. When Lattner left Tesla last June, Keller was given broader authority over the Autopilot program as a whole. Keller's departure comes just weeks after the death of Walter Huang, a driver whose Model X vehicle slammed into a concrete lane divider in Mountain View, California. Tesla has said Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. Tesla has since gotten into public feuds with both Huang's family and the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the crash. "Today is Jim Keller's last day at Tesla, where he has overseen low-voltage hardware, Autopilot software and infotainment," Tesla said in a statement to Electrek. "Prior to joining Tesla, Jim's core passion was microprocessor engineering, and he's now joining a company where he'll be able to once again focus on this exclusively."
Keller was a well-known chip designer at AMD before he was recruited to lead Tesla's hardware engineering efforts for Autopilot in 2016. Keller has been working to develop custom silicon for Autopilot, potentially replacing the Nvidia chips being used in today's Tesla vehicles. When Lattner left Tesla last June, Keller was given broader authority over the Autopilot program as a whole. Keller's departure comes just weeks after the death of Walter Huang, a driver whose Model X vehicle slammed into a concrete lane divider in Mountain View, California. Tesla has said Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. Tesla has since gotten into public feuds with both Huang's family and the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the crash. "Today is Jim Keller's last day at Tesla, where he has overseen low-voltage hardware, Autopilot software and infotainment," Tesla said in a statement to Electrek. "Prior to joining Tesla, Jim's core passion was microprocessor engineering, and he's now joining a company where he'll be able to once again focus on this exclusively."
In case anyone is wondering why you're seeing so many stories like this about Tesla all of the sudden, here is your answer. In particular, this chart.
Tesla is the most shorted stock in the US right now. There is literally no company in the US that more people have a financial interest in seeing fail than Tesla. A third of the stock is in short positions. The problem is that this is incredibly dangerous from the perspective of a short squeeze. Shorts hold the stock price down - the massive surge in short selling countered the benefits (from a stock price perspective) of the major increase in Model 3 production rates. But this can only be taken so far; it's not like they're going to be able to short 100% of the stock. If Model 3 production continues to rise like it's been doing - and along with it, the stock price - not only will some short sellers want to liquidate, but others will be contractually forced to liquidate. This is done by purchasing an equivalent number of shares of TSLA to cover their short. This purchase in turn raises the stock price. With such a massive percentage of Tesla shorted, this can easily snowball, where the obligations of some shorts to purchase cause the next to be forced to purchase, and the next, and so forth - all purchased at whatever price Tesla happens to be at the moment. The shorts would need to acquire literally 1/3rd of Tesla's stock in a short period of time.
Needless to say, this would be a financial disaster for them. If Tesla underperforms what the market expects of them, longs lose some money. But if Tesla overperforms what the market expects, shorts lose a huge amount of money. It's highly asymmetric.
So in case you were wondering if it was a coincidence that all of the sudden everyone and their cousin suddenly started bashing Tesla in the news - even for something as mundane as another company poaching talent from Tesla - no, it's not a coincidence.
No matter how kind you are, German children are kinder.
Yes yes yes, Karen... why's everybody picking on your poor lil' Elon?
Maybe, just maybe, Tesla is the most shorted stock in the market because it's considered the most overvalued and most likely to crater. Nah, can't be. MAAAAAARS!!!!!!!
In case anyone is wondering: all of this "Autopilot is doomed" stuff comes out at a time when it just had one of its most massive updates in its history (unfortunately, it hadn't significantly rolled out before the fatal crash in California). It no longer filters out stationary objects, it handles roads with unusual lane widths, two-direction roads with no central lane markings, and will deliberately "break the rules" when needed for safety (for example, driving into the shoulder when a truck is about to hit you, or when the normal "rules of the road" have suddenly changed.
But of course, you're not going to see a million articles about that because that's not the obligate doom-and-gloom.
I consider myself a self-driving pessimist. I think there's far too many rules that we process, with too complex reasoning, for self-driving to be immediately around the corner. I have slowly been becoming more optimistic with the realization of how much more one can enable a car to "see" than humans (for example, using radar brightness at different wavelengths to determine road smoothness / traction conditions ahead, or past altimetry data to determine the depth of water on a road), but still think it's going to be a long time before full self driving becomes mainstream. But I also believe that, if properly implemented, combined human-computer systems can be much better than either alone - with the computer bringing new senses and "constant attention" to the picture, and the human bringing their brain. The key is ensuring that the human pays full attention. Making them regularly torque the wheel is one thing, but even better looks to be where the tech is headed - eye tracking. With eye tracking, they can't stop paying attention to the road. And I can't see how in such a situation that "human + computer" is not better than "human alone".
No matter how kind you are, German children are kinder.
I don't believe Tesla deserves a $48B market cap-- worth more than Ford's $45B and close to Honda's $60B.
Tesla hopes to sell 500,000 vehicles this year, and 1,000,000 next year, both with a net outflow of cash. Tesla is also significantly encumbered by debt and will likely have to dilute existing stockholders more. Honda sells 5 million vehicles a year with an operating profit plus all kinds of other "stuff".
Yes, electric cars will be important, and ultimately TSLA may move as many vehicles and deliver as much profit as Honda. Maybe. But-- how much of that upside will current stockholders enjoy (vs. new stockholders and bondholders), and how long will it take to reach that point (time value of money)?