Hamartia Antidote
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Can't call something 60,000 people are testing vaporware...
seekingalpha.com
Resolving all doubt that its data collection efforts are at a quality on par with competitors like Waymo (GOOG, GOOGL) and Cruise (GM), Tesla (TSLA) announced in its quarterly earnings letter that 60,000 people are testing its Full Self-Driving, or FSD, beta software. An FSD beta tester does the same job as a Waymo or Cruise employee paid to test autonomous vehicle software, but Tesla’s customers pay for the privilege. FSD beta testing involves both automatic data collection through varied and complex data curation methods and manual data collection; beta testers can press a button on their touchscreen to manually flag a segment of their drive for review by Tesla.
A fair way to compare Tesla’s quantity of data collection to that of Waymo and Cruise is to divide its number of beta testers by ten. The average American drives only about an hour per day, whereas a Cruise or Waymo vehicle may be in operation ten hours per day, give or take. So, Tesla’s FSD beta testers provide the equivalent of 6,000 test vehicles, which happens to be ten times the most recent number that Waymo disclosed. Tesla has never disclosed how many FSD test vehicles it operates internally (but it has disclosed it does conduct internal testing).
I have long argued that both Tesla’s passive and active data collection efforts, that is, when Autopilot or FSD beta is either engaged or disengaged, are incomparably useful for FSD development. This newest disclosure should put that argument to rest. Not only is Tesla’s FSD beta program larger than the testing program of its largest competitor, Waymo, it conducts more testing than all other autonomous test vehicles on U.S. soil, which as of mid-2019 numbered 1,400.
This is very close to a straight-on apples-to-apples comparison. What a Tesla FSD beta tester does is essentially the same as what a Waymo or Cruise test driver does. They carefully observe the car as it drives in autonomous mode. They intervene when prudent. And, occasionally, they manually flag a segment of the drive for manual review.
Tesla's Ace In The Hole: 60,000 FSD Beta Testers (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Tesla announced in its quarterly earnings letter that 60,000 people are testing its Full Self-Driving beta software. This could be its ace in the hole, read this article to learn more.
seekingalpha.com
- Tesla announced in its quarterly earnings letter that 60,000 people are testing its Full Self-Driving beta software.
- The FSD beta test program is larger than the autonomous vehicle test program of Tesla's largest competitor, Waymo, and all of its U.S.-based competitors combined.
- Tesla's data collection advantage presents two distinct opportunities in autonomous driving technology: partial autonomy and robotaxis.
- Four trends in deep learning show great promise as enablers of these two opportunities for Tesla.
Resolving all doubt that its data collection efforts are at a quality on par with competitors like Waymo (GOOG, GOOGL) and Cruise (GM), Tesla (TSLA) announced in its quarterly earnings letter that 60,000 people are testing its Full Self-Driving, or FSD, beta software. An FSD beta tester does the same job as a Waymo or Cruise employee paid to test autonomous vehicle software, but Tesla’s customers pay for the privilege. FSD beta testing involves both automatic data collection through varied and complex data curation methods and manual data collection; beta testers can press a button on their touchscreen to manually flag a segment of their drive for review by Tesla.
A fair way to compare Tesla’s quantity of data collection to that of Waymo and Cruise is to divide its number of beta testers by ten. The average American drives only about an hour per day, whereas a Cruise or Waymo vehicle may be in operation ten hours per day, give or take. So, Tesla’s FSD beta testers provide the equivalent of 6,000 test vehicles, which happens to be ten times the most recent number that Waymo disclosed. Tesla has never disclosed how many FSD test vehicles it operates internally (but it has disclosed it does conduct internal testing).
I have long argued that both Tesla’s passive and active data collection efforts, that is, when Autopilot or FSD beta is either engaged or disengaged, are incomparably useful for FSD development. This newest disclosure should put that argument to rest. Not only is Tesla’s FSD beta program larger than the testing program of its largest competitor, Waymo, it conducts more testing than all other autonomous test vehicles on U.S. soil, which as of mid-2019 numbered 1,400.
This is very close to a straight-on apples-to-apples comparison. What a Tesla FSD beta tester does is essentially the same as what a Waymo or Cruise test driver does. They carefully observe the car as it drives in autonomous mode. They intervene when prudent. And, occasionally, they manually flag a segment of the drive for manual review.
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