Tesla needed a supercomputer,
so they built one
Just as with EV charging stations (knowing that he'd need to build them so people wouldn't balk at buying an EV), Elon Musk knew that he'd need a huge super-computer to make self-driving cars a reality. So he built one. Their new super-computer, named "Dojo", is now up and running and doing real work for their self-driving software. Dojo is still being expanded, and by this time next year, it will be the world's most powerful super-computer.
| Why "Dojo"? It means, "A place where martial arts training takes place", and so Elon takes it to have the general meaning of, "A place where training takes place". And that's what Dojo is optimized for: a training computer that trains the millions of mobile computers in the Tesla vehicles. |
This is just a small portion of Dojo (and it's the first photo of it
released)
Even without Dojo's help, Tesla has won the race to autonomous driving, and you'd truly need a telescope to see who's in second place. Now with Dojo tackling the last 5% (all the complex edge cases) using "end-to-end neural networks", it won't be too long until Tesla's self-driving feature goes from Level 2 (where there must be a person in the driver's seat ready to take over), to the level where no human intervention is required.
And Elon has offered to license the finished software to other EV manufacturers, just as he did with allowing other EV manufacturers to use Tesla's charging infrastructure. I'm glad that there's at least one automaker CEO who cares about the environment.
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Bonus Info! All car manufacturers purchase parts inventory from their suppliers on a "just in time" basis. In-other-words, they don't stockpile parts, because if they did, it is not good for their quarterly balance sheet. So they order parts so that the parts arrive "just in time" for use on their assembly lines. What has Tesla been doing? Constructing buildings next to their new factories expressly as warehouses for....... parts! They are using the "warehousing" model of parts inventory, and while not good for balance sheets, it's GREAT when there is a parts shortage for any reason, because they can keep on churning out cars when other manufacturers can't. Supply chain interruptions can bring car-makers to their knees, but not Tesla. Is Elon Musk crazy for buying parts this way? Yep; crazy like a fox. |