They don't have the permit, nor did they even try to apply for one, to do that.
With the head of the program commenting under the tweet that the car reached 72mph speed... The same head of the program, that testified that the Paint in Black video, the infamous FSD introduction, was faked. He belongs in prison too.
We are stuck in a rut where we cannot divorce the past from the present, and words from reality.
If you were a time traveler from 2005 and saw the current state of affairs you would observe these facts:
- EVs are popular (!!!)
- Tesla is a leader in EVs
- Tesla is by far the most interesting American car company
- The car delivering itself is pretty amazing
- Robotaxi is pretty amazing, and so is Waymo, but they aren't much different in behavior, and one of the two (Waymo) looks a lot more expensive and a lot more complicated.
I doubt Robotaxi growth will accelerate nearly as quickly as the ever-hyperbolic Musk says it will, but I also don't think it's a grift. However they got there, they are there; Robotaxi exists, and it works, and it's impressive.
Please be aware that clickbait is more popular than it ever has been, and negativity is the current bait, so nearly everything you read about Tesla is framed in a negative way. This has a profound effect on public sentiment, and none of us are immune.
I have no doubts that the car drove itself to the customer. We are in 2025 - there are several autonomous vehicle operators, that logged millions of autonomous miles. There is nothing difficult to fake a 'self delivered car'.
By faked I mean - a pre-mapped, potentially driven 100 times route before the real 'delivery' took place. If they start delivering autonomously to all the clients, then I'm completely wrong and it would absolutely be very impressive. But we both now that it will not happen (or as Tesla like to say in 'two weeks maybe').
