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GM says Tesla can’t achieve Level 5 self-driving using Autopilot hardware

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Director of autonomous vehicle integration for General Motors, Scott Miller, thinks Tesla’s goal to build a self-driving vehicle that meets SAE’s criteria for a fully autonomous Level 5 car is not physically possible when using Autopilot hardware.

“The level of technology and knowing what it takes to do the mission, to say you can be a full level five with just cameras and radars is not physically possible,” said Miller in speaking to the Australian press about Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s goal to produce a full self-driving vehicle using Autopilot technology.

“The mission” that Miller is speaking about is Musk’s plan to demonstrate a cross-country drive from California to a parking garage in NY, in a Tesla, and achieved completely without human intervention. Miller believes that Tesla’s perception of fully autonomous self-driving doesn’t take into account the safety levels and standards defined by the SAE for Level 5 autonomy. According to the SAE’s Automated Driving Guide, Level 5 allows for “the full-time performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task under all roadway and environmental conditions that can be managed by a human driver.”

“I think you need the right sensors and right computing package to do it. Think about it, we have LIDAR, radar and cameras on this. The reason we have that type of sensor package is that we think you need not be deeply integrated in to be level five, you should have redundancy.” says Miller.

LEVELS OF DRIVING AUTOMATION ARE DEFINED IN NEW SAE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD J3016

“Do you really want to trust just one sensor measuring the speed of the car coming out of an intersection before you pull out? I think you need some confirmation. So, radar and LIDAR do a good job at measuring object speed, cameras do a great job at identifying objects. So, you can use the right sensor images to give you confidence in what you’re seeing, which I think is important if you’re going to put this technology out for general consumption.”

Miller adds, “Could you do it with less and be less robust? Probably. But could you do it with what’s in a current Tesla Model S? I don’t think so.”

“Could you do it with what’s in a current Tesla Model S? I don’t think so.”

The GM executive’s stance on using LiDAR in combination with radars and cameras goes completely against the grain of Musk who firmly believes that its LiDAR-less Autopilot hardware suite is capable of achieving full autonomy and at a consumer-friendly price point.

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Musk reaffirmed his position that Autopilot hardware included in the latest Model S and Model X will be able to support self-driving features. “You can absolutely be superhuman with just cameras. You could probably do it 10 times better than a human with just cameras.” said Musk at TED2017.

“November or December of this year, we should be able to go all the way from a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York with no controls touched in the entire journey.”

Still, the majority of technologists within the autonomous driving community believes that infrared LIDAR and its ability to create complex 3D maps to support autonomous cars is crucial when it comes to reliability and safety.

General Motors recently launched its SuperCruise system on the Cadillac CT6 that allows Level 2 autonomous driving. The Detroit-based automotive giant believes that achieving Level 5 full autonomy is still 15 years away.

What do you think about GM’s comments? Is Musk’s vision for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving capabilities overly optimistic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rxW68ADldI

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Gene has been obsessed with cars since before he could legally sit in the front seat. Writer, researcher, unofficial CS support, accountant, native suit guy when needed, and overall stick poker. He approaches every story the way he approaches a road trip: with too much enthusiasm, not enough planning, and a surprisingly good outcome. gene@teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”

SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.

It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.

Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.

Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:

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There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.

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Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning

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Elon Musk addresses the crowd next to the new Tesla Roadster, which Tesla offers in Performance, Thrust and Rocket versions. (Image: Tesla/X)
Elon Musk addresses the crowd next to the new Tesla Roadster, which Tesla offers in Performance, Thrust and Rocket versions. (Image: Tesla/X)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.

Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.

But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.

Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds

Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:

“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”

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Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.

Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”

Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.

Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.

What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX’s biggest earnings test yet lands Tuesday, and Tesla shareholders should be watching

SpaceX reports earnings Tuesday as Wall Street watches AI spending, Starlink growth and Tesla merger

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SpaceX reports third quarter results after the market closes Tuesday, with a webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET streamed on X, and Tesla follows a day later. Bloomberg consensus, cited by Pepperstone, calls for revenue of $12.89 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $6.62 billion and adjusted EPS near $0.15. That would be about 65% growth from the second quarter and SpaceX’s first profitable quarter since its IPO. Analysts expect roughly $6.4 billion from AI and $4.9 billion from Starlink, which is projected to reach 14.3 million consumer subscribers. Capital spending is forecast at $19.6 billion, leaving free cash flow near negative $11.6 billion.

The numbers matter because SpaceX has spent months trying to win over a skeptical market. It priced its record IPO at $135, spiked to $225.64, then sank near $105 in early August. Friday’s close of $146.03 sits about 28% below the June high. The Q2 report beat on revenue at $7.8 billion and put Starlink at 12 million subscribers, but $18.4 billion of capex hurt the stock. Since then SpaceX reached orbit on Starship Flight 14 with 26 Starlink V3 satellites, agreed to buy 800 MHz spectrum for about $8 billion as part of its Starlink Mobile push, and signed a fourth compute hosting deal in four months worth roughly $13 billion a year from December. Management is targeting more than 2 gigawatts of compute by year end and a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate. Evercore ISI, which raised its target to $275, said the quarter may be judged more on those targets than the reported figures

All of this sits under the Tesla merger question. Barclays analyst Dan Levy expects an all stock deal in which SpaceX buys Tesla at a premium, using reference values of $2.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, and said an announcement would need to come by late October or early November to be voted on at Tesla’s December 6 annual meeting. Barclays estimates Musk would hold about 37% of the combined company and 56% of the votes. Musk said in July that combining companies cannot be discussed on an earnings call, but an investor question asking when SpaceX will merge with Tesla is sitting on SpaceX’s Q&A platform, and Teslarati has tracked how the Roadster demo revived the talk.

If a deal happens, Tuesday’s result would effectively set the price Tesla holders would receive. Their shares would convert into SpaceX stock, along with exposure to a company with a heavy investment on AI, while Tesla itself expects 2026 capex above $25 billion. A strong quarter and calmer spending would make that exchange easier to sell. Another round of heavy capex and a falling stock would make it harder.

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