Some Unique Ways Tesla & Palantir Could Work Together

Last week, news broke that Tesla and Palantir may be working together because of a subdomain link that was found connecting both companies. Although this is still speculation, people have been trying to use this exact link for months with nothing happening, and now it brings up an active Palantir foundry login page. We'll see if a formal partnership will be announced one day.

However, it got the community to begin discussing what would happen if Tesla and Palantir were to work together. Both companies are incredibly innovative and offer first in class technologies. Both founders, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, also have a long history of working together due to their time building Paypal together. Thiel was also an early investor in Elon's second company - Space X. So, how would the two actually work together?

Edge AI

Tesla is one of the leading companies that uses Edge AI, which is "a paradigm for crafting AI workflows that span centralized data centers (the cloud) and devices outside the cloud that are closer to humans and physical things (the edge)." This means companies that specialize and use Edge AI are trying to create experiences that are highly optimized for the day-to-day reality of being a human being and can offer value instantaneously without spending time trying to send data back to a cloud provider and wait for the results.

Tesla uses Edge AI for their autonomous vehicles to actually operate autonomously in real time, without communicating back to the cloud.

Well, Palantir has Apollo. It is also one of the leading companies leveraging Edge AI for real time decision making. It's taken Edge AI to some of the most amazing areas like Space with it's meta constellation product, allowing satellites to provide real time data back to humans on earth based on space signals, geo-spatial intelligence, etc.

One could imagine that Palantir could provide some servicing in the advancement of Tesla's Edge AI efforts by optimizing or adding new layers to them in order for them to thrive.

Supply Chain & Logistics

Palantir has fundamentally transformed and innovated a true data-driven approach when it comes to supply chain optimization.

When the world flipped over because of the pandemic, Palantir was one of the leading companies helping large organizations, governments, and enterprises learn how to optimize their supply chains by centralizing their data and providing insights around it. We know many companies have chosen to use Palantir to completely overhaul their legacy supply chain infrastructure and embrace a more modern approach.

Tesla is a company with a huge amount of supply chains because they make...cars. Every nut and bolt needs to be accounted for when you are making an electric vehicle as complex as a Tesla. If Palantir is the first in class technology in regards to centralizing data from silos to make supply chains more efficient and save businesses time and money, one could hypothesize that Tesla would at least be interested in a conversation with them.

Tesla is one of the leading technology companies in the world, and as a result, it's fair to assume that they don't want to be using technology within their supply chain that is inadequate or inferior to what other companies may be doing since they are advanced at every other angle in regards to deep learning and AI. Palantir would be the obvious match to work with since we even have knowledge that Palantir has excelled specifically in helping car companies.

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

Tesla has a network of super-chargers across the globe that allow their vechiles to stop virtually anywhere within 15 miles on the planet and get a refill on their battery.

This charging network will only get more complicated and advanced as Tesla themselves grow over the next decade, and managing that growth is where Palantir comes in.

Palantir has created an EV charging station OS, that allows charging stations to communicate with network operators, towns, etc. in an efficient way.

From their release,

"The EV Infrastructure Operating System offers any business or organization the ability to build, scale, and operate first-class EV charging infrastructure for the coming mobility revolution. It integrates an organization’s data through Palantir Foundry for operational decision-making, with the option to add Wejo — a robust connected vehicle data asset. The EV Infrastructure OS can help build profitable, efficient, and sustainable EV networks and ensure equitable and universal access to EV charging in the future."

In a nutshell, businesses will be able to use this EV operating system in order to manage all the EV charging stations that exist within a local area. The goal is to attach a data driven approach to the decision making required to effectively charge vehicles across neighborhoods by centralizing that data and using Palantir's software to then meaningfully interpret it.

If Tesla hired Palantir to create a integrated operating system specifically to help manage their super chargers OR integrate all non-Tesla cars to be able to integrate within the super charging network, then that could be another area of potential collaboration between the two companies to meaningfully leverage Tesla's data and Palantir's software to create huge value for consumers.

What About Tesla's Vertical Integration?

Many argue that Tesla would not work with outside companies because of how vertically integrated they are, therefore leading them to just do everything in house.

While this argument sounds logical on paper, it is misplaced in this context.

Vertical integration doesn't mean you do everything in house - it means you do things in house that you can uniquely provide value around. Tesla is not in a business of optimizing supply chains, they are in the business of making EVs. If we know Palantir has worked on their solutions for the past 10 years and have the best technology, it only makes sense to work with the leading company's on these issues vs. doing it in house just to say you are.

Tesla is not vertically integrating word processors in their company, they are using Microsoft Word because it's the best word processing software. This would be the same argument around why they'd be interested in using a solution like Palantir.

Here's a video discussing this more in depth:

Thanks for reading the article. If you'd like to get in contact, please @ me on twitter here or email me at amit@dailypalantir.com. You can join our Palantir Facebook group here to participate in community discussions, polls, and more.