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Comment by praneshp | Hacker News Reader

First I thought your predictions were my favorite part of your comment, but your confidence won out.

Thanks, I enjoy it. Gives me something to link back to once I'm correct.

I mean, Uber's financials are a total mess, and their valuation is 100% predicated on "winning" at autonomous driving, and Elon just said that everyone using LIDAR platforms are fighting a losing battle, and I personally believe him.

Plus he owns the lion's share of the electric car supply chain, so...

Tesla's balance sheet is not in great shape either, and lately Musk seems to be heavily leaning on the autonomous driving network idea as a justification for raising additional capital (largely through dilutive equity offerings of course, since the corporate bond market has had enough of Tesla's shenanigans and they want over 8% interest on unsecured debt).

Also, Tesla is heavily all-in on computer vision - I would be hard pressed to name a single person alive who has a bigger conflict of interest than Elon Musk when it comes to giving advice on the feasibility of vision-based AD. Consider your sources...

Tesla is also just a battery company. They're not specialized in A.I. or even scalable car manufacturing, as they've struggled to hit quotas.

The final computer vision product they're trying to build isn't something you can just bootstrap your way into. Or even will, because building fleets of self driving cars means less car owners and customers for your main business.

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