Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Taylor Ogan Profile picture
Taylor Ogan
@TaylorOgan
CEO at @snowbullcapital // In China for investment opportunities // Boston to Shenzhen // Grammar nut // Disclaimer: https://t.co/CYiDT5xlML
Nov 26 • 28 tweets • 12 min read
I’m headed to Huawei’s Mate 70 launch event in Shenzhen (yes, Shenzhen Metro has business class). This phone/chip/OS/event is a really big deal for Chinese tech, and has big implications for US-China relations. Here’s some background. Image In May 2019, the US Dept. of Commerce added Huawei and its affiliates to the Entity List, which restricted US companies (and allies) from exporting tech to Huawei. They expected this to cripple Huawei, because it wouldn't be able to acquire any semiconductors made with US tech.
Nov 20 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
BYD's Zhengzhou factory is already enormous, and it's getting even bigger. Here's Tesla's largest factory, for comparison. That blue line is 2 miles. Image Here's the most recent satellite image, taken a few days ago. That new structure in the middle (汽车专用作业区) will connect the factory to the Zhengzhou International Land Port, which will be 50km², roughly the size of Manhattan. Image
Sep 16 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Last week, there was a piece in @FT on how China's gov’t policies and regulatory crackdowns have severely impacted the private sector—particularly VC and startups—resulting in a stifled entrepreneurial spirit and a significant decline in new company formations. There was a chart from the article that looked abysmal, that went viral on its own. (see chart below) The chart listed two sources—one misspelled—and the CEO of the other responded to one of the authors on Twitter that the data from his platform is certainly not comprehensive and was completely misrepresented in the chart. Author @EleanorOlcott's tweet was also Community Noted. Plenty of others have also debunked it, but she/FT has not responded, and the article has not been taken down.
Sep 10 • 20 tweets • 12 min read
I’m at the Huawei launch of the world’s first tri-fold phone, and new intelligent driving conference in Shenzhen. Huawei’s timing is not a coincidence; Apple’s keynote was just a few hours ago. This is symbolic.

I’m definitely the only American here…
Image
Image The color of the Mate XT Ultimate Design is completely Chinese. Looks awesome. Now @huaweirichard, who was spotted using the phone last month, is explaining the use cases for a triple screen.

Crowd loves the stock app, for some reason….


Image
Image
Image
Image
Jun 3 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
I can't believe people still talk about Tesla when this exists. Here's Huawei's ADS 2.0 in Shenzhen, filmed by me.

Luxeed S7 has LiDAR, no HD maps, 11 HD cameras, 3 mmWave radars, 12 USS, significant onboard compute...

Driver didn't touch controls once (except to reroute). 40 mins straight. This model is popular among DJI, Huawei, and Tencent engineers, who compare their commutes’ disengagements. I have never heard of anyone knowing anyone who has had a disengagement.
Apr 28, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
ARK locks its Tesla models, but we unlocked them. I'm going to dig into @ARKInvest’s new Tesla model this weekend, but before that, let's look at what ARK thought about 2023.

[Unanswered issues with past two years’ models quote-tweeted here] @wintonARK Remember, just last year, ARK’s bull case figured Tesla would sell 3 million cars in 2023—its bear case 2.4 million. It also thought Tesla would do $174B in automotive revenue this year (2022 model bull case), or $141B on the low-end (2022 bear case). In Q1 2023, it did $19.4B.
Mar 27, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
So Bloomberg came out with a story this morning about how Jack Ma is staying away from China.

A few hours later, Jack Ma was literally visiting a school in Hangzhou, and Bloomberg had to "update" its entire article.

You can't make this stuff up.😂 The authors of the story are no longer listed (LMAO), but you can still find them in the metadata.
Dec 13, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
What's the state of Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" initiative? Is it improving? How does it compare to other companies' systems?

Data-driven thread below: In March, I tweeted this thread putting Tesla's FSD beta disengagement rates into perspective. You could barely see Tesla on the charts.

Okay, so Tesla was nowhere close to the big boys nine months ago, but has it improved since?
Dec 13, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
So re: the whole Tesla robotaxi thing: how does Tesla plan to address the inherent blind spots its cars have? Image I know I've mentioned this a lot in the past, but I think more people need to be having this conversation.
Dec 9, 2022 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
J.P. Morgan's 2022 Global Autos Survey just came out. This is a good indicator of demand going into 2023.

JPM says, "As compared to our survey results from 2021, we see evidence across countries such that consumers are less likely to buy a new car in 2023." Image Top brand preference for budget friendly EVs is typically Toyota and Volkswagen, and BYD in China. Image
Dec 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Jack nailed this, over a year ago. And this
Aug 9, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
It’s 2022, and Teslas still aren’t stopping for children. The black car on the right that does stop for the dummy child is equipped with LiDAR from @luminartech—a technology Tesla still refuses to use in its production vehicles—though Tesla does use LiDAR to test how far off the distances its cameras estimate are from actual.
Jun 27, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
There has been a very recent explosion in ADAS/ADS tech in consumer vehicles, especially in China. There's tight competition as companies work to find the right combination of hardware sensor modalities and compute power. Image 2/ Among the most HW-equipped is the $50,000 Hozon Neta S, with *six* Huawei LiDARs, five mmW radars, 13 high-res cameras, 12 ultrasonics, and 1,000 TOPS.

Elon Musk famously called LiDAR "ugly", among other things. Can you spot the LiDARs?

440mi range on this beast. Image
Jun 6, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Tesla's job postings decreased -24.4% this week, following Elon Musk's internal email that, "Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10%." @snowbullcapital's Jobs Tracker noticed the decrease 23 hours before Musk sent the email. Details below. Image 2/ For more info on our proprietary Jobs Tracker, which we made public last June, click through the linked tweet.

We use this tracker to understand companies' areas of focus, pain points, turnover, growth, scale, and much more. It's really useful to us.
Apr 21, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
JPM call with CPCA: "When asked whether the industry can make up April production lost in late 2Q or 2H22, CPCA indicated it will depend on underlying demand." CC: @DKurac CPCA: "A more noticeable recovery should take place after April 25th as key logistic bottlenecks such as worker mobility and transportation are addressed." CC: @TroyTeslike
Apr 21, 2022 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
It's that time of year again, and we once again opened ARK's Tesla Model. No one from ARK responded to our questions about last year's model in the thread quote-tweeted, and there are even more mistakes/ridiculous assumptions this year. 2/ Last year, ARK had 17,640 human-driven Teslas coming onto a non-existent Tesla ride-hail network in 2021.

In this year's model, ARK has 29,293 Teslas coming on in 2022, bear case. Again, this network doesn't exist, nor has Tesla hinted it ever will.
Apr 4, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
BYD raised its guidance from 1.2M-1.3M passenger NEV deliveries in FY22 to 1.5M, conservatively, and up to 2.0M with no supply chain issues. Here are our thoughts, and how this stacks up. Image 2/ First of all, remember how easy it has been for BYD to scale its NEV production over the last two years. It helps that BYD is the only EV OEM that makes its own chips and batteries in house.

BYD has shown scaling is of no concern.
Mar 8, 2022 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
Tesla Full Self-Driving perspective thread:

One of the difficulties in determining where Tesla falls in the autonomous vehicle space is that Tesla provides essentially no data to the public, especially its FSD Beta program.

Using the limited data we do have, let's compare. Image 2/ I've put into perspective where Tesla sits relative to the others attempting Level 4-5 in the past:
Here:

And here:

But now there is a dataset the Tesla crowd is beginning to (contribute to and) cite.
Feb 1, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Here's a typical drive on Tesla FSD Beta, and why it's the opposite of useful. It's most certainly not even close to being "safer than a human", by any factor.

22-minute drive, 4.5 miles, and WAY too many interventions. Here's the route we drove. Nothing crazy. We didn't even film all of the interventions. I have drives like this every time I use it, regardless of what x.x version it's on. THIS is what Elon is saying will be Level 4 this year. THIS was supposed to be robotaxi in 2020.
Jan 28, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
As more and more companies are deploying actual robotaxis with no driver to cities, the Tesla FSD project looks increasingly further behind, both iteratively and functionally.

Elon is looking more desperate wrt FSD as the competition reveals genuine autonomous vehicles. If you are still failing to see this, godspeed. Over the past year, Tesla/TSLA owners have privately reached out to me, admitting they were too blinded by the obsession with “FSD sucks now, but version x.x will blow your mind.” Tesla is nowhere close to robotaxis.
Dec 14, 2021 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Piggybacking on @bridgemccarthy_'s thread on BYD's role in Toyota's announcements today:

1. We think last week's media reports on Toyota partnering with BYD to produce a $30k affordable EV next year missed the point. This isn't new news.

2/ So Toyota unveiled 15 BEV models today (finally) that it plans to sell before 2030. Toyota wasted too much time and money on FCEV technology over the years, so the world's largest automaker has been scrambling to get on board with BEVs in the last 2.5 years.