Tesla's Record-Breaking Q2 Surges Ahead of Expectations

July 3, 2023

By Kevin Armstrong

Tesla continues its remarkable production numbers

@ICannot_Enough

Tesla has once again surpassed expectations with its Q2 2023 performance. The electric vehicle giant produced nearly 480,000 vehicles and delivered over 466,000 vehicles during the second quarter, eclipsing market predictions and reaching new record highs.

The Stars of the Show: Model 3 and Model Y

Tesla's workhorses, Model 3 and Model Y, led the charge in total production and deliveries. With 460,211 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles produced and 446,915 delivered, these models continued to underline their popularity among consumers. Tesla's flagship vehicles, Model S and Model X, also contributed to the numbers with a solid production of 19,489 units and 19,225 units delivered.

Increased incentives bolstered this robust performance, a strategic shift towards a more balanced regional mix of vehicle builds, and reduced prices.

Charting Tesla's Phenomenal Growth Journey: From 22,442 to 5 Million

In addition to setting records in Q2, Tesla is on the brink of a significant milestone. The company is anticipated to produce its five millionth vehicle this quarter, a tremendous achievement that underscores its dominant position in the EV space.

To appreciate the significance of this milestone, let's take a brief trip down memory lane. Back in 2013, Tesla produced 22,442 vehicles. The following years witnessed remarkable growth, with 31,655 vehicles produced in 2014, 50,792 in 2015, and 75,890 in 2016.

Despite the growing pains, Tesla's production numbers took off, hitting 103,014 in 2017. The next year, they more than doubled to 245,491. The momentum continued, and by 2019, the company produced 367,656 vehicles. The production nearly crossed the half-million mark in 2020 with 499,647 vehicles, and by 2021, the number soared to 936,222. In 2022, Tesla hit a new record by producing 1,313,851 vehicles.

Financial Results Announcement: Mark Your Calendars for July 19

Investors, analysts, and EV enthusiasts will be paying attention on July 19, 2023. Tesla will announce its financial results for the second quarter after market close. A live Q&A webcast will follow at 4:30 p.m. Central Time to discuss the company’s financial and business results and its outlook for the future.

As Tesla gears up to build its five millionth vehicle and start producing Cybertruck, it's clear that the company has experienced exponential growth over the past decade. This trajectory, characterized by tenacity, innovation, and commitment to customer satisfaction, sets the stage for what promises to be another record-breaking year in 2023. With the financial results for Q2 2023 on the horizon, Tesla's growth story is far from over. As we've seen over the years, the sky's the limit.

Tesla’s Optimus Robot Learns to Walk Without Vision [VIDEO]

December 13, 2024

By Karan Singh

Optimus Falls - but catches itself!

Not a Tesla App

Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.

Daily walks help clear your mind pic.twitter.com/dUsW58trS6
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) December 9, 2024

A Look Behind the Curtain

Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.

Optimus is Blind

Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer.

Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.

Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips.

What’s Next?

Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.

Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.

There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.

We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.

Is Tesla Close to Licensing FSD? GM Quits Cruise, BMW Praises Tesla

December 13, 2024

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

In a relatively surprising move, GM announced that it is realigning its autonomy strategy and prioritizing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) over fully autonomous vehicles.

GM is effectively closing Cruise (autonomous) and focusing on its Super Cruise (ADAS) feature. The engineering teams at Cruise will join the GM teams working on Super Cruise, effectively shuttering the fully autonomous vehicle business.

End of Cruise

GM cites that “an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” and “considerable time and resources” are required for scaling the business to a profitable level. Essentially - they’re unable to keep up with competitors at current funding and research levels, putting them further and further behind.

Cruise has been offering driverless rides in several cities, using HD mapping of cities alongside vehicles equipped with a dazzling array of over 40 sensors. That means that each cruise vehicle is essentially a massive investment and does not turn a profit while collecting data to work towards Autonomy.

Cruise has definitely been on the back burner for a while, and a quick glance at their website - since it's still up for now - shows the last time they officially released any sort of major news packet was back in 2019.

Competition is Killer

Their current direct competitor - Waymo, is funded by Google, which maintains a direct interest in ensuring they have a play in the AI and autonomy space.

Interestingly, this news comes just a month after Tesla’s We, Robot event, where they showed off the Cybercab and the Robotaxi network, as well as plans to begin deployment of the network and Unsupervised FSD sometime in 2025. Tesla is already in talks with some cities in California and Texas to launch Robotaxi in 2025.

GM Admits Tesla Has the Right Strategy

As part of the business call following the announcement, GM admitted that Tesla’s end-to-end and Vision-based approach towards autonomy is the right strategy. While they say Cruise started down that path, they’re putting aside their goals towards fully autonomous vehicles for now and focusing on introducing that tech in Super Cruise instead.

NEWS: GM just admitted that @Tesla’s end-to-end approach to autonomy is the right strategy.

“That’s where the industry is pivoting. Cruise had already started making headway down that path. We are moving to a foundation model and end-to-end approach going forward.” pic.twitter.com/ACs5SFKUc3
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 10, 2024

With GM now focusing on Super Cruise, they’ll put aside autonomy and instead focus solely on ADAS features to relieve driver stress and improve safety. While those are positive goals that will benefit all road users, full autonomy is really the key to removing the massive impact that vehicle accidents have on society today.

In addition, Super Cruise is extremely limited, cannot brake for traffic controls, and doesn’t work in adverse conditions - even rain. It can only function when lane markings are clear, there are no construction zones, and there is a functional web connection.

The final key to the picture is that the vehicle has to be on an HD-mapped and compatible highway - essentially locking Super Cruise to wherever GM has time to spend mapping, rather than being functional anywhere in a general sense, like FSD or Autopilot.

Others Impressed - Licensing FSD

Interestingly, some other manufacturers have also weighed into the demise of Cruise. BMW, in a now-deleted post, said that a demo of Tesla’s FSD is “very impressive.” There’s a distinct chance that BMW and other manufacturers are looking to see what Tesla does next.

BMW chimes in on a now-deleted post. The Internet is forever, BMW!

Not a Tesla App

It seems that FSD has caught their eyes after We, Robot - and that the demonstrations of FSD V13.2 online seem to be the pivot point. At the 2024 Shareholder Meeting earlier in the year, Elon shared the fact that several manufacturers had reached out, looking to understand what was required to license FSD from Tesla.

There is a good chance 2025 will be the year we’ll see announcements of the adoption of FSD by legacy manufacturers - similar to how we saw the surprise announcements of the adoption of the NACS charging standard.