Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Tesla Is Building Its Own AI Chips For Self-Driving Cars (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the do-it-yourself dept.

Yesterday, during his quarterly earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed a new piece of hardware that the company is working on to perform all the calculations required to advance the self-driving capabilities of its vehicles. The specialized chip, known as "Hardware 3," will be "swapped into the Model S, X, and 3," reports TechCrunch. From the report: Tesla has thus far relied on Nvidia's Drive platform. So why switch now? By building things in-house, Tesla say it's able to focus on its own needs for the sake of efficiency. "We had the benefit [...] of knowing what our neural networks look like, and what they'll look like in the future," said Pete Bannon, director of the Hardware 3 project. Bannon also noted that the hardware upgrade should start rolling out next year. "The key," adds Elon "is to be able to run the neural network at a fundamental, bare metal level. You have to do these calculations in the circuit itself, not in some sort of emulation mode, which is how a GPU or CPU would operate. You want to do a massive amount of [calculations] with the memory right there." The final outcome, according to Elon, is pretty dramatic: He says that whereas Tesla's computer vision software running on Nvidia's hardware was handling about 200 frames per second, its specialized chip is able to crunch out 2,000 frames per second "with full redundancy and failover." Plus, as AI analyst James Wang points out, it gives Tesla more control over its own future.

83 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Different headline than I expected by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From the previous thread about Tesla, I expected this headline to read "Tesla is now building their own arcade cabinets".

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:Different headline than I expected by saloomy · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It was either going to be "Elon's folly: why his chips wont work and he will become homeless trying to make them", or "Elon Musk set to disrupt the modern world as we know it with new Super-Computer on a chip stroke of genius".

      What I can say is, the reason Tesla will be the biggest innovator and market leader in their field is simple. People are passionate about it. Good or bad, everyone has a strong opinion. Tesla these days reminds me of the "Pray" cover WiReD published about Apple before the second coming of Steve Jobs. Like apple, they were innovating even while close to bankrupt, making moves to right the company, and making strategic acquisitions and bold moves no one else had done before. Remember the first iMac? Remember the "only 4 products" pitch? Everyone felt very passionate about Apple. You either loved or hated them. Why? Because they really did do things differently (pardon the cliche).

      Whatever you say about Apple, they are the dominant market leader in terms of profitability, defining standards, and defining what it means to be in technology. They are the "me" to everyone else's "me too". If you want to know how smart phones work, or what features they will have, look to Apple (or Apple rumors).

      Tesla will eventually be that for cars. Everyone will move closer to their aesthetic to gain from the aerodynamics they have figured out. Everyone will move to their sales model (no middle-men dealerships). Everyone will move to their large touchscreen interface. Everyone will move to their feature/functionality set. They are going to be the innovators. Why? Because everyone talks about them. When was the last time there was a story on here about Ford's software, or the latest F150 designs. Ford and the like are the Nokia phones of the previous decade. Mercedes is Blackberry. Watch another industry become reinvented in the next 10 years.

    2. Re: Different headline than I expected by saloomy · · Score: 2

      Tesla has invented the fpga? Really? Why is,this exciting and ground breaking?

      They do not own a fab or have the cpu designers that Intel, amd and invidea have.

      This is just more Musk nonsense.

      In 3-4 years, if tesla still exists, we will hear how the new ai chip is almost here. Just put down your non refundable deposit for the upgrade when you buy your car which will also be late and Musk will give you themupgrade 5 years later.... long after every other car maker has already perfected level 5 self driving vehicles and sells them at a million a week.

      Andmtheir cars wont murder people either.

      Yeah, right. FPGA is the technology they are espousing here. You are right on the button. I wish I was as insightful as you are. /sarcasm

      They are investing in new applications of technology. They are doing their data collecting, determination of the best solution, and spending the capital required to further their lead. They don't have a FAB? Excellent! You only want a dedicated FAB when the quantities required are in the hundreds of millions. Why would they want a FAB? Apple designs the A(n) chips and uses them in millions and millions of phones, and still doesn't need a FAB. Not having a FAB is a "no shit, sherlock" business decision when your target market is maybe 150,000 cars a year, at best. Good to know if you were ever in Elon's position, you wouldn't know your ass from your face and drive your business into the ground trying to make whatever you think a FAB is for whatever you think a FAB does.

      Ok, next argument. They don't have the CPU designers that Intel, AMD, and N-Vidia have? Great. They aren't designing a CPU. They are designing a specific chip that at best could be described as an ASIC to handle the tasks related to the neural network processing they determined would be the best solution to processing the various data they have, based on the largest, most autonomous vehicle fleet traveling on public roadways to date. Completely different set of skills needed for such a chip, and all their data collection will help them really thread that needle.

      The rest of your comment is just a pile of horse shit. Tesla is the furthest up the "magic quadrant" if Gardner made a study of current AI systems, by far. Almost every publication and review of various self-driving systems and competitive tests have proven as much. They are doubling down on that strategy to make it harder and harder for their competitors to catch up, as they race to level-5 driving. Oh, and of course they will be around in 3-4 years. Probably at double the current valuation. Running out of cash (which they don't think they will based on end-of-year profitability), and having no value are two VASTLY different things.

      Cars don't murder either. Vehicular manslaughter? Maybe. Murder implies premeditated intent.

      Dumb-ass

    3. Re: Different headline than I expected by Corbets · · Score: 1

      Unlike you, he doesn’t appear to be a vitriolic troll.

      But he might have stock too, I don’t know.

    4. Re: Different headline than I expected by saloomy · · Score: 1

      I do not own any Tesla stock, nor are my comments paid for in any way. Don't come here playing identity politics with me. Who I am doesn't matter. What I am saying matters. Either my ideas are good or bad. If you want to refute them, refute them. But you do not know me, you know nothing about me. You are just a little retard who wont even sign up for an account here, little coward, little bitch.

      Now, for my argument:

      Elon is running two VERY VERY technical companies with insane technical achievement trajectories. One of his organizations simultaneously landed two rockets barely two years after he proved dip-shits like you wrong and pulled it off when everyone insisted it couldn't be done. This, when they had only had rocketry for less than a decade. They learned very fast. And no, they actually built their own engine, design to production. They didn't buy engines from the russians and slap a fuel tank on it. Space-X actually did the ground work and beat everyone at their own game. Musk is a brilliant leader, and his technical prowess clearly demonstrates his ability to lead a team to design a chip.

      Besides, I didn't suggest Must is single-handedly designing a CPU or a GPU, I said Tesla building an ASIC that caters to their self-driving neural network gives them competitive advantage. I said Tesla certainly has the engineering prowess and capital to make it happen. Much, much smaller companies have built their own silicon designs.

      If this was the FDA with a new drug or medical procedure it would be off the market so fast but noooo it is ELON MUSK THE PEDOPHILE DETECTOR!!!! Anything he says or does it great even if it kills people. Such crony capitalist bullshit.

      Yeah, I'm the biased one. Right.

      Fuck off, retard.

    5. Re: Different headline than I expected by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      You are the biased one. Because the Merlin engine isn't that advanced - it is more or less 1960s technology but lighter thanks to the more modern materials becoming available since then. Landing the rockets is revolutionary, the engines aren't, though - not even close.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    6. Re: Different headline than I expected by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Tesla has invented the fpga?

      This is not an FPGA. It is a matrix math engine, like Google's TPU.

      They do not own a fab

      Other than Intel, nobody owns their own fabs anymore.

      You just code up your chip in Verilog, debug in a simulator, and upload it to TSMC.

      or have the cpu designers that Intel, amd and invidea have.

      Neither did Google, but their TPU is a big success.

    7. Re:Different headline than I expected by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

      That'll be made by his Boring company.

  2. Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by mykepredko · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know if you've ever said anything nasty about Elon.

    Now, his vehicles know.

    Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by NettiWelho · · Score: 1

      You know if you've ever said anything nasty about Elon.

      Now, his vehicles know.

      Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

      Wouldn't that kind of murder be more likely be perpetrated by the government or organized crime? if theres a difference between the two, that is

    2. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, he will launch them all to Mars.

    3. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by Bloke+down+the+pub · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't that kind of murder be more likely be perpetrated by the government or organized crime? if theres a difference between the two, that is

      Of course there's a difference. Organized crime is - see the clue in the name - organized.

      Seafood platter, etc.

      --
      It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
    4. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by jeremyp · · Score: 1

      I love the quaint belief that Americans have that corporations are more trustworthy than the government.

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
    5. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      It's not that we trust them more, we just know they have less power to enforce their will. You can still choose to associate with a corporation or not; not so much with Government.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    6. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      What corporation can force you to work with it? Name one.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    7. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by drsquare · · Score: 1

      You can choose to live in a country or not. At least you can vote out a government.

    8. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by NettiWelho · · Score: 1

      What corporation can force you to work with it? Name one.

      Private prisons :)

    9. Re:Maximum Overdrive 2: Revenge of the Dissed by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      How does one end up in a private prison except by the Government decreeing that you must go to one? That is the point - corporations can ONLY enforce "their will" on you if given that power by Government.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  3. Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by postbigbang · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For better and worse, keeping things proprietary means it's by definition both closed source, and tested only to one's own environment. Although it produces fast yields, it doesn't have many eyes. Many eyes and many hours are needed to vet the integrity and edge cases (like cliff edges) before safety can be assured.

    It's a risky, expensive, and proprietary endeavor. If everyone (systems builders) were using similar development, the testing age could be completed in a concurrent time, rather than a serial/iterative time. I'm betting against this turning out well.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    1. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Neural net calculations are pretty simple, just repeated many times over. Testing the silicon should be relatively simple compared to general purpose CPU or even GPU design.

    2. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by RhettLivingston · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Every NN is proprietary, and that is where the functionality to worry about is at. The performance on "edge cases" in driving is directly related to how much compute power you can throw at it. Tesla is multiplying its compute power. The edge cases will improve. Staying with the general purpose GPU instead of true NN hardware will guarantee continued unhandled edge cases.

      This HW is undoubtedly also more energy efficient. That is the real key. They could stack on more boards, but these units are already consuming a significant amount of the vehicle's energy. The trick is to get more compute power with the same or less energy. NN specific HW is going to be a requirement to have that happen.

      Everyone in the industry has known that GPUs will not be used past the first generation or so. They are development HW. Someone will eventually come up with a general purpose NPU that will win the market, but it hasn't happened yet - mostly because NN implementations haven't settled.

    3. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      First, you have to QA the silicon in all of the ambient environments, which means the worst of Alaska to the heat of Death Valley, all precip, all RF/EMI, etc.

      Then using a closed OS (or a modified BSD-licensed RTOS), you have to ensure its reliability and recoverability from miscellaneous events. Then you have to train the sucker.

      You can look to the failures of Google Maps for problems, including map-to-net errors, driver foolishness, and the craziness of random events, like rabbits and pedestrians, etc.

      Here's what's more likely to have happened:

      Elon said to Jensen: Yo, Jen, buddy, you gotta cut the price of that stuff
      Jen then says: Hell no, we can't keep up as it is.
      Elon says: I'm gonna have to make my own silicon.
      Jen says: Go fish, mothufucka.
      Elson says: Hah!

      Proprietary silicon ensues.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    4. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by postbigbang · · Score: 2

      No, not yet.

      Tesla PURPORTS to be able to add more NN intelligence using proprietary silicon. None of this is proven yet, just like many other Tesla missed goals. This is really rocket science, even with NN. Your rocket is an auto navigating known/unknown obstacles through its use cycle. It can't talk to other cars so as to update them with info about how squirrels leap out in front of you, then go back suddenly. The car will swerve anyway. Kill the squirrel is my opinion, personally, but these cars don't learn. There is no device to add to the neural network, and if one evolves, it only uses the data that other Tesla inputs are able to render or use.

      They'll have to use FPGA technology to get it started before they go to fab, and each fab is a chance that they'll have to update.

      Please wait while your car is updating. Ignore that Peterbuilt directly crossing your path.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    5. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      First, you have to QA the silicon in all of the ambient environments, which means the worst of Alaska to the heat of Death Valley, all precip, all RF/EMI, etc.

      Sure, but that's routine part of the design. Every modern device has several pieces of silicon that went through that process. There are tools and people that know how to do this.

      Then using a closed OS (or a modified BSD-licensed RTOS), you have to ensure its reliability and recoverability from miscellaneous events. Then you have to train the sucker.

      Which has nothing to do with proprietary nature of the silicon. Even if they had bought standard silicon, they'd still have this problem.

    6. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      The cars themselves don't learn, but that would be very inefficient anyway. Tesla can review accident logs, modify their NN, and then send updates to all the cars.

      FPGA technology makes no sense. FPGAs are slow and power hungry for NN applications. Besides, there's no reason to change the hardware. The same silicon can implement a wide variety of neural net topologies and weights.

    7. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      And all of this takes time, money, and both together equals margin, something that's pretty slim for Tesla.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    8. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      FPGAs make great sense for execution. If you use a kernel that learns in a small environment and execute in an FPGA for routines, you get the limbic/pre-frontal cortex analog. FPGAs can run circles around GPUs as well, given the scope of execution needed.

      As far as reviewing accident logs, that's much tougher. Ingesting the logs to discern actions to take/conditions to learn becomes not so much arbitrary, but a difficult regimen itself. And it means that it's forensic, rather than preventative. Knowing what works vs what doesn't work is better than what didn't work. It means there was no accident, due to a successful posture, e.g. a weighted value for a situation successfully surmounted.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    9. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      They're not fully autonomous systems, and the data that they gather is not from fully autonomous systems. Those I know driving Teslas like to actually drive them.

      Dissimilar software runs now on Tesla cars as well. Amalgamating that data is no easy task. And we agree that this amalgamation is important.

      This is why I'm personally advocating for a unified approach to the problem, believing that it will eventually be a money pit for Tesla.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    10. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      FPGAs can run circles around GPUs as well, given the scope of execution needed

      You have no idea what you're talking about. NN evaluation requires multiplications, big caches and fast external memory access. FPGAs are lousy for all of those things. Big FPGAs are crazy expensive too. And their key property, the ability to upgrade them in the field, is totally useless for this application.

    11. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      NNs learn. FPGAs are easily sent through (new) subroutines. Wanna do algorithms? Field programmable ones, ones that don't have to wait for storage? And they're not that expensive. As a microcontroller in this app, they're great for sensor monitoring.

      Whatever the actual design that arrives, it's proprietary, and isn't going to be open to scrutiny, and will be expensive. I still believe it's a bad move.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    12. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      Nothing of the like. I've watched wafer operations over the year hit the wall time and again. Fab shops aren't cheap. Renting a fab shop after you've re-invented the wheel isn't cheap, either. QA isn't cheap. Generations of this aren't cheap.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    13. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      By going baremetal, they're reducing complexity and eliminating most of the potential for what you're talking about. Also, I'm guessing this might be a realtime system, in which case tolerances will be even tighter and bugs would be more obvious and thus more likely to get identified.

    14. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      First, you have to QA the silicon in all of the ambient environments

      I beg to differ, Elon's style seems to be to half-ass it and then tell his customers to use at their own risk.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    15. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      I was on the road very early this morning and I was very happy to say I avoided around 10 frogs enjoying the warm pavement. Automated cars should be even better at it than I am.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    16. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Because Elon Musk has the attention span of a toddler at an amusement park.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    17. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by larkost · · Score: 1

      No Neural Nets are “trained” in the lab. Then you choose the best one for your deployment, and make it as efficient as possible. The th8ng you send out into the field is quite static. It no longer “learns”.

    18. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Problem is they already sold hundreds of thousands of vehicles with the full self driving option, so they will all need to be retrofitted with this chip if that's what self driving requires. And I'd guess more sensors too, because the cameras they have are probably inadequate and don't have any self-cleaning functionality that will be essential.

      It's no wonder they jacked up the price of the self driving option.

      The whole thing is another lawsuit waiting to happen.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    19. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by stooo · · Score: 1

      >> I beg to differ, Elon's style seems to be to half-ass it and then tell his customers to use at their own risk.

      Nope. They do the QA on the component level.
      But they let the customers do some of the vehicle level testing.

      --
      aaaaaaa
    20. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      it's by definition both closed source, and tested only to one's own environment

      So basically the entire self driving car industry with the concept of custom silicon being completely irrelevant?

    21. Re:Building proprietary silicon could be dangerous by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      Maybe. I suspect they just customized the pipeline here to keep things from having to go to external memory and come back in. Human vision processing works in that way. There are several stages of specialized hardware producing results and sending them off to the next stage which operates in parallel. The early stages don't need NNs at all. The NN usage increases as you get to later stages. Using the same HW for every stage means that there is a lot of wasted HW. It also often means that multiple stages that can run simultaneously are trying to use the same cache.

      It would be relatively easy to define stages that will likely never move around though the operations within them might change and split them to greatly increase the pipeline performance.

      This type of thing has been a key to performance in real-time applications for many decades. Almost all the computers I worked with in avionics in the 80s and 90s used custom bit slice processors and gate arrays to pipeline the operations and perform tasks that would have been impossible with GP processors at the time. It is nothing new. And a large portion of existing automotive processors today are customized for the application.

      In essence, I take this as a sign of the beginning of maturation of their tech.

  4. If anyone needs me... by dfn5 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'll be in the basement hiding from the cars

    --
    -- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
    1. Re:If anyone needs me... by WCMI92 · · Score: 1

      Good idea. Especially if they are Uber cars.

      --
      Corporatism != Free Market
  5. Surely a bad decision by mugurel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "We had the benefit [...] of knowing what our neural networks look like, and what they'll look like in the future,"

    Really? If they take their neural network development seriously I don't think they know what their networks will look like in ten years. It's a research area in the middle of a transformation. Using architectures molded into hardware is probably just costly and will act as an antagonist to innovation. I don't think having 2000 vs 200 frames per second right now outweighs that downside.

    1. Re:Surely a bad decision by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Not really. Musk has it all figured out. Just ask Rei! He will tell you the exact specifications of the new system as well.

    2. Re:Surely a bad decision by mugurel · · Score: 1

      To speak with Knuth, premature optimization is the root of all evil.

    3. Re:Surely a bad decision by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      There's no guarantee that off-the-shelf hardware from NVidia is a better match for networks 10 years from now.

    4. Re:Surely a bad decision by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      And 10 NVidia boards instead of 1 would drop the range of the vehicle in half and multiply the cost of an already expensive computer by 10. If there is something better in 10 years and the car is still on the road, you just unplug the old and plug in the new - probably for less than half what this one costs.

    5. Re:Surely a bad decision by locater16 · · Score: 1

      What he's saying, very badly probably, is that they're building an inference chip, which is designed to deploy neural nets, rather than a repurposed GPU like Nvidia offers, which is much better at training neural nets. Difference being floating point precision requirements, as well as bandwidth v alu balance.

    6. Re:Surely a bad decision by whoever57 · · Score: 1

      Just ask Rei! He will tell you the exact specifications

      I think you will find that should be "She":
      https://teslamotorsclub.com/tm...

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    7. Re:Surely a bad decision by Jeremi · · Score: 1

      ... and if Nvidia is better in 10 years, Tesla will have the option of buying Nvidia hardware at that time. Developing in-house hardware no doesn't mean they can only use in-house hardware for the rest of time.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    8. Re:Surely a bad decision by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      They aren't unplugging a chip. This new chip goes into a new computer that replaces the entire previous computer. The computers are plug compatible, not the chip. So, yes, I've turned off one smart phone on the network and turned on a new one with all the old one's stuff, even the sim. Worked great.

  6. To what end? by Kjella · · Score: 3

    A car travelling at 90 mph is moving about 4 cm/millisecond. So going from 200 fps to 2000 fps is going from 20 cm to 2 cm per cycle. What's the use of recognizing a car every two centimeters? For a jogger at 9 mph it's down from 2 cm to 2 mm. It's neat and all but I don't see how that necessary to react in the time frames a car needs to react. Even if it takes 3-4 frames for the car to get a motion vector 0.2 seconds is still way quicker than a human and 0.02 seconds doesn't bring that much.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:To what end? by mugurel · · Score: 1

      Agreed. The main risk of a self-driving car is probably not in reacting too slowly, but in scene detection breaking down. For that you need better architectures, not faster architectures.

    2. Re:To what end? by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I bet that this allows them to have more cameras. 2000 fps for one camera could be 250fps for 8 cameras. it could also be used for much higher resolution cameras that have fisheye or insect like lenses.

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
    3. Re:To what end? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Think of a video game. If you dial your resolution and detail back to 1990s levels, most modern GPUs could perform thousands of FPS on the top modern games. They don't because we've used the rate gain to produce higher fidelity and more detail.

      Same here. It may run their current NN at 2K frames per second. But they will change that network to utilize the extra time to get better results than they currently have at 200 FPS.

      Think of the NN as a Chess engine. It can consider more with more compute power or it can give faster responses with more compute power. It is a tradeoff.

      He probably used a bad example, but he's talking mostly to business school grads, not engineers or scientists.

    4. Re:To what end? by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Maybe after a point, but up until that point, the main risk is reacting too slowly. Ask anybody with an AP2 Tesla how well it handled curves prior to earlier this year. Of they don't use the word "lag", they don't know software, and if their eyes don't bug out in abject terror, they don't know how to drive.

      Basically, it had (and still has, to a lesser extent) trouble with lane keeping, because its reactions lagged behind reality, and it started turning way too late, resulting in uncomfortable turns, getting dangerously close to barriers and center lines, etc. This is better in current versions, but I still get scared enough to take manual control a couple of times per day.

      So right now, performance is still their main problem. This is a very welcome announcement.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    5. Re:To what end? by Stakkato.Dot · · Score: 1

      You're calculating based on a single camera. The Model 3 has 8: 8 x 200fps = 1600fps

    6. Re:To what end? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      "control over its own future".
      No company wants to be the coachmaker, placing their design over another brands "computer".

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    7. Re:To what end? by philmarcracken · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's the answer they want people to hear. The real answer is no longer having to pay nvidia.

    8. Re:To what end? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      0.2 seconds is nearly two car lengths at 90mph

    9. Re:To what end? by Vasheron · · Score: 1

      You can get better estimates of the position and orientation of objects by using more measurements. Remember these neural networks are susceptible to sensor noise and environmental effects. I worked on an object recognition and tracking system once during my undergrad. When we boosted the frame rate it drastically improved the performance of the system.

    10. Re:To what end? by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Most drivers never tried to use AutoSteer in places where it mattered. Those of us who drive CA-17 and other similar roads regularly were the only ones swearing about it, but we were very much swearing.

      And I made fairly public comments here on Slashdot and Tesla discussion boards about it, noting that it was unlikely that the software being used for AutoSteer at the time was actually the base code for their self-driving feature, but rather temporary code that they were patching and tweaking minimally, in maintenance mode, until they could get the real software out. Unsurprisingly, I was correct in that statement. :-) They massively redesigned their machine learning setup in an update that came out earlier this year, and the difference is night and day.

      I also made comments a few months back saying that it was unlikely that AP2 would actually be the hardware used for self-driving, and that they would probably be replacing it. That also proved to be correct (just now).

      The problem is not that people aren't telling users the truth, but rather that the average person doesn't notice the problems, because the average person isn't sufficiently technically inclined to know what to look for. Those of us who are sufficiently skilled in software engineering to recognize the issues get ignored, because people automatically assume that the negative opinions are the result of rare problems, rather than because of common problems that few people notice. And the result is that outside of a few Tesla message boards, everybody thinks that everything is sunshine and roses, where in fact, there are still a lot of problems.

      The other thing that most people don't realize is how often your car will need repairs during the first year for stupid assembly mistakes and lack of proper quality control, but that's another rant for another day.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    11. Re:To what end? by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      A car travelling at 90 mph is moving about 4 cm/millisecond. So going from 200 fps to 2000 fps is going from 20 cm to 2 cm per cycle. What's the use of recognizing a car every two centimeters? For a jogger at 9 mph it's down from 2 cm to 2 mm. It's neat and all but I don't see how that necessary to react in the time frames a car needs to react. Even if it takes 3-4 frames for the car to get a motion vector 0.2 seconds is still way quicker than a human and 0.02 seconds doesn't bring that much.

      2cm is about 3/4 inch. Could the vehicle recalculate and take a trend line view of a problem. That would lead to sufficient leadtime to prevent a fatality. If the car could know what to do by one foot of travel (at 90mph), wow.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
  7. Existing owner by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Funny

    As an existing owner, how do I upgrade to the new hardware system? Is it an over the air update?

  8. And then something changes... by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

    What happens if (or, when) Tesla realizes they need to make a significant change to their code?

    Automated driving and AI are both hot research areas. I wouldn't take a bet that there won't be big changes in the near future.

    This smells like an unholy combination of two things: a development team getting burnt by premature optimization, with just a hint of "painting oneself into a corner".

    Between this and the omission of lidar, I'm not enthusiastic about Tesla's self-driving capability. My pessimism applies across the board---to its timeliness, reliability, and safety. I really liked it when Tesla delivered premium electric vehicles instead of the same hideous abominations that everyone else made. If I bought a Tesla, however, it would be in spite of their self-driving tech.

    Volvo is putting a lot of effort into developing the tech safely before marketing it, and, most importantly, before putting it into consumer goods. At this point, I'd expect to feel safe enabling self-drive on a Volvo way before I'd do it on a Tesla. An OTA update doesn't reattach my head.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    1. Re:And then something changes... by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't take a bet that there won't be big changes in the near future.

      Most likely, the silicon can handle future changes just as well as current graphics cards, if not better. Also, I would expect Tesla to keep evolving their hardware.

    2. Re:And then something changes... by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Between stereo and inter frame processing using the known car speed/direction you can reconstruct a 3D representation without LIDAR. LIDAR has problems too. The mutual interference which LIDAR suffers from requires some very expensive tricks to prevent ... especially expensive for non scanning LIDAR, which is the best LIDAR because fuck mechanical 2D scanners. LIDAR is a dead end. high resolution radar would be nice though for heavy rain and fog.

      As for designing their own neural network ICs, better than be dragged over a barrel by NVIDIA. You really don't want to be in a situation where you are dependent on NVIDIA, nothing good will come from it. All the other neural network accelerators just don't have the market volume to rely on long term availability or support.

    3. Re:And then something changes... by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      60%.. works fine.. Only one of those can be true.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  9. Free upgrades, right? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    As they have been advertising for a long time that what you buy now contains all the hardware required for fully autonomous driving with a free software upgrade in the future.

  10. Re:Because that's an area they have expertise in by saloomy · · Score: 1

    Guys that are serious about software, build their own hardware. - Alan Kay

  11. Re: Because that's an area they have expertise in by saloomy · · Score: 1

    This is actually a brilliant play. If they roll their own, it will be a differentiator his competitors wont be able to catch up with him on. They will do it themselves, be better at it through investment and expertise, having learned more by having billions of miles driven by their customers to teach their back-end system how to act. They will be market leading in driverless vehicles.

  12. ASIC by Cochonou · · Score: 1

    In other words, they're making an ASIC. Great, but I would have expected that most of these computer vision-based self-driving platforms would indeed be using ASICs. So the news here is probably that they are moving away from NVidia's turnkey hardware solution.

  13. Manual handling by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Very practical question regarding Tesla handling (never drove a Level 2+ car before, only my parents' car with FCAS and LDWS, and various similar system on all the various fleets of car-sharing).

    Normally, a Telsa should handle both steering and accelerating/braking.
    I the driver where to grab the wheel to adjust steering - BUT keeps the feet hovering above the pedals without pushing them (Yet) - would this disengage only the autopilot steering ? While keeping engage the usual distance keeping / emergency autonomous braking features (FCAS) ?
    Or can the driver only fall back to fully manual ? (Absolutely needs to also take control of the pedals)

    Also, how good are the FCAS in city ? (Im so much happy with my parent's car that I currently mostly drive on automatic distance keeping in city too. Most of the time, I'm inputing speed directly through the FCAS interface, and only use pedal in a few emergency situations that the FCAS misses.)

    On one hand, given all the boasts Tesla makes, I would suspect that their system should compare well to system like Volvo's.

    On the other hand, Tesla is an US company (a country where to us it seems people spend a couple hours on the highway every single day), and might only work reliably on highway. Also all the in city performance of FCAS I've seen relies on some sort of LIDAR (Volvos have a forward laser field in addition of cameras for in city mid-speed short distance obstacles, all VW have the same laser for in city safety even on the lower Up! models, etc.) which Tesla completely lacks.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:Manual handling by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      I the driver where to grab the wheel to adjust steering - BUT keeps the feet hovering above the pedals without pushing them (Yet) - would this disengage only the autopilot steering ? While keeping engage the usual distance keeping / emergency autonomous braking features (FCAS) ?

      If you press the gas pedal too much, you'll disable automatic braking, and nothing else. If you touch the brake, it disengages everything. (This is, IMO, a bug; it is too easy to accidentally tap it on a curve and have the wheels suddenly straighten. But I digress.)

      Also, how good are the FCAS in city ?

      The non-steering stuff works fairly well in a city, though you'll have to manually stop at stop signs and traffic lights (unless you're the second car back at a light).

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  14. Seriously : Yes, (hardware) upgradeable by DrYak · · Score: 1

    There's two components on an autonomous system.

    The sensors and the computer.

    Tesla has publicly stated that they've on purpose designed the computer to be modular, and the current cars since recently (forgot the exact date, it's google-able, I think it's since the introduction of the triple front cam) are designed in such way that you could swap the computer with a newer one in the future.
    So in theory yes, if they keep their word, you should be able to install the newer computer with the better NN when it's out in a couple of years. (Or get all the torches and pitchforks and be angry at them not keeping their word).
    This makes a lot of sense : computers (thanks to Moore's law) are progressing and getting obsoleted much faster than cars. It would be stupid to be stuck for 8 years on the same computer. There are even start-ups organizing their business around this concept (e.g.: Comma.ai)

    The problem is going to be the sensors. Tesla currently seems to be lagging a bit behind others : yup they might have a bit more side cameras, but they still don't have any LIDAR-like features, where most of the competition does (from high range stuff like Volvo, all the way down to the cheaper VW Up!), and they only very recently started putting multiple front-facing cameras (like lots of German and Japanese brands do) (Currently, Tesla's triple cams are setup to each be optimal at a different range/field of view, but in a pinch they might help some amount of stereoscopy to better discriminate 3D. A better computer would definitely help for that).
    These things are depending on the model of the car, AND CANNOT be retro fitted (according to the same announcement from Tesla - e.g.: they can't retro fit the triple cams to current owners).

    So in short, in a couple of years, you could pay to get a better computer in your car, but you'll be lacking all the 10 new additional sensors that Tesla would be launching at that time with an announcement "This time we promise, with all these the car would be finally ready for Level 5 at some point in the future (like every other time we added sensors)" .

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  15. Sensors : Getting there. Eventually. by DrYak · · Score: 1

    This smells like an unholy combination of two things: a development team getting burnt by premature optimization, with just a hint of "painting oneself into a corner".

    Well, on the other hand, It's just number-crunching hardware, used to run their NN.
    Maybe they'll come up with a good computer, maybe in the future they'll realise that silicon by Nvidia or AMD ends up being the best to run their nets.

    It's more important to them (they'll be divesting money into that R&D) than to users (it's just number-crunching silicon to run a NN on it. You're supposed to be able to swap the computer for a better one in the future, according to Tesla).

    Between this and the omission of lidar, I'm not enthusiastic about Tesla's self-driving capability.

    I totally agree with this. At a time when every body else relies on one (from high range Vovlo which add a laser field to their camera, down to the cheapest VW Up! that also has the laser as a standard for City Safety), I'm also uncomfortable with Tesla still skipping it.

    On the other hand they seem to be slowly learning from their mistake. They started making big promises with a single front facing camera, but now have switched to a triple cam (currently mostly setup so that each cam has a different range/field of view compromise, but in a pinch could also be leveraged for some stereoscopy like most of the German and Japanese brands do).
    They seem that each each they'll announce a "This time we got all the sensors, for good !" new platform with even more sensors.
    They'll probably add a LIDAR down the line in a few years (probably at the time when the recent Caterpillar buyout eventually leads to their hoped smart-phone-with-a-LIDAR), and then probably redesign the LIDAR inhouse for the next iteration after that.

    On the third hand : Tesla has specifically stated that their sensors are NOT retro-fitable (They can't retrofit the current triple cam), only the computers are.
    We should probably wait at least a couple of years, until Tesla offer a amount of sensors we're comfortable with, before being able to consider it.
    As you said other manufacturer who are longer at this game than Tesla would probably have beaten them to it by then. (But will probably only offer smaller batteries with shorter ranger than whatever range-monster Tesla would have on the marker, or still be stuck with hybrid tech).

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  16. Re: Because that's an area they have expertise in by jeremyp · · Score: 1

    Except his chips will probably be differentiated by being more expensive and not as good as the chips made by people who have been doing it for years much like Tesla's production lines.

    --
    All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
  17. Re: Because that's an area they have expertise in by polar+red · · Score: 1

    he's building (and selling) 5000 3's, 1000 S's and 1000 X's vehicles per week.at 20% margin(someone extrapolated a 30% margin on 3's see https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ), for those 45000/100000/120000$ vehciles that would mean a total margin of 89 million$ per week, 4,6 billion per year margin. I believe Bernie would be envious about that.

    --
    Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
  18. Comparing to Apple? by coop247 · · Score: 1

    The reasoning is because Apple did it?

    Apple has to fit its chip into a 4 oz container slightly larger than a credit card. You've got an entire f'in car, put 100 chips in it genius.

    --
    //TODO: Insert catchy phrase
  19. Potential upside of neural nets by Photonmaker · · Score: 1

    If your trip has more than two stops you may get to see places you've never seen before - the "hidden" stops; hopefully there is a supercharger along that path.

  20. Re: Because that's an area they have expertise in by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

    Bernie would also be envious of the fact people confuse gross margin with profit, as if there are zero expenses related to that $4.6 billion mythical gross margin...

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  21. Re: Because that's an area they have expertise in by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

    They had lots of gross margin - but no profit yet. And with only a few quarters of cash on hand left, it's time to either start raising more money - or making profit. Margin really means little of anything unless you can turn that into positive cash flow. It's the same thing that sunk Webvan and pets.com

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  22. Ambitious by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

    Why does he think he can start up a new business like that and eclipse Nvidia that has decades of experience? He's been the dog that caught the car. The dog can't keep doing that.

    Could be the first (or second... or so on) nail in this coffin.