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Modelling Q4 Model 3 Deliveries

***** NOTE: 12/25 ***** One more mistake to correct. I estimated 507 Dec deliveries in TMC, based on the number of undelivered configurations.  However, it appears I drastically underestimated how many of those were "ghost" entries that were abandoned before delivery.  It now appears that Dec deliveries in TMC will come in around 330 at most.  That makes total TMC deliveries 934.  NY sample rate was 2.38%, but assuming that's 20% higher than average, we get 1.9% sample rate.  That implies ~50K deliveries in Q4 . So my first estimate was high on Dec deliveries, but low on sample rate.  The final result is about 2K higher. ***** NOTE: 12/16 1PM PST***** After publishing this,  I did some more analysis that makes me question my conclusions here. 1) It's become more clear that 20% of Sept VINS are simply missing from NMVTIS. This has implications both for the NMVTIS-based predictions and for the NY registrations (if we assume 20% of NY regs are simply missing as w

Why Tesla's FSD Approach is Flawed

The only folks more prone to rants than myself are Tesla fans talking about neural nets. So I thought, why not combine the power of the rants? I'll rant about Tesla fans ranting about the power of neural nets! To get myself good and wound up, I listened to a recent Tesla Daily  Podcast  about Full Self Driving (FSD) and Neural Nets. Go ahead, listen to it.  I'll wait. It's actually not that bad. "Jimmy D" is the guest and he talks with some authority about neural nets. He doesn't get anything terribly wrong on the basic tech. Everything he says about how Tesla plans to exploit it seemed reasonable to me. If you are a Tesla skeptic, it's a good way to understand Tesla bull thinking. Of course, like everyone else who's familiar with the AV space, I think Jimmy is 100% wrong about Tesla's prospects. He's a typical Tesla fan- smart, technically savvy, and without any detailed domain knowledge. He's drawn in by the surface logic of Tes

What Smart Tesla fans Get Wrong about FSD

The only folks more prone to rants than myself are Tesla fans talking about neural nets. So I thought, why not combine the power of the rants? I'll rant about Tesla fans ranting about the power of neural nets! To get myself good and wound up, I listened to a recent Tesla Daily Podcast about Full Self Driving (FSD) and Neural Nets. Go ahead, listen to it.  I'll wait. It's actually not that bad. "Jimmy D" is the guest and he talks with some authority about neural nets. He doesn't get anything terribly wrong on the basic tech. Everything he says about how Tesla plans to exploit it seemed reasonable to me. If you are a Tesla skeptic, it's a good way to understand Tesla bull thinking. Of course, like everyone else who's familiar with the AV space and not named Elon, I think Jimmy is 100% wrong about Tesla's prospects. He's a typical Elon fan boy- smart, technically savvy, and without any important domain knowledge. He's drawn in by El