alt Hacker NewsI simply won't believe they'll sell a version that leaves the ground until I see someone who obviously isn't working for Tesla with one. I'd be surprised if the FAA didn't have something to say about it. I just don't believe for a second that a stiff wind or a low ceiling or a power line (public road or not) or a very obese driver with nobody in the passenger seat isn't going to turn a very expensive car into a very expensive upside down piece of scrap. SpaceX has had enough explosions resulting from COPVs that I can't imagine these actually getting into the hands of people with more money than sense. It's a compelling marketing gimmick that can't be real.
But practicality aside, you have to be an absolute fool to believe any promises Elon makes at this point. Whether it's the automatic charging cable snake, or your car picking you up and dropping you off at the airport, or renting out your car as a self driving ride share, or your cybertruck also being a boat, or the dozens of other empty promises that he's made, there's just no reason to think he's telling the truth about anything until you can try it for yourself.
>Whether it's the automatic charging cable snake, or your car picking you up and dropping you off at the airport, or renting out your car as a self driving ride share
While I can appreciate, and he has joked publicly about having "pathological optimism," that he is more aggressive with timelines than the reality of the alignment between technology, practicality (cost, etc.), and regulations, most of what you have listed continues to be progressively released.
Is he careful with his speech in terms of distinguishing a "big audacious goal" from a shipping reality in the near term? Absolutely not.
So going through some of your list..
>automatic charging snake (you left off hot swappable batteries btw)
So prototypes were made and demoed, but ultimately they landed with wireless charging pads.. they are already starting to deploy this for real world testing.
https://www.teslaoracle.com/2026/08/19/tesla-tsla-gears-up-f...
>your car picking you up and dropping you off
I'll preface this that I'm nearing 99% FSD on my Tesla, and most of that 1% was the early miles when I first got it.
Robotaxis exist and hundreds of them in multiple cities are autonomously driving passengers every day. They continue to scale those numbers monthly.
They also have 14 billion FSD miles and growing.
I use summon every day to have my Tesla unpark itself and pick me up at the front door of my office. Short of me holding down a "come to me" button on my phone, it performs this action fully autonomous.
Banish (the opposite that sends the car away) exists but is not publicly available due to safety, operational and regulatory reasons (for example where does the car go if it can't find a parking spot?)
Currently this tech is limited to line of sight (~200 Feet) but the speed and distance continues to increase over time with updates.. again as the tech and regulations come together. Eventually, as we see with Robotaxi, the ability to drive you to work, drop you off, go back home and park and return when you're off work is not science fiction. The end to end solution exists today, the technology and laws/regulation need to come together.
If your complaint is that cars purchased in 2016 can't do this, sure I'll concede.. but modem HW4 is more than capable and the tech and laws are continuing to adapt.
>renting out
A far future vision sold as near term, for sure.. but it's not a matter of if but when as tech and regulations close the gap. Robotaxis are essentially doing this today.
These are not "empty promises" more so than long term visions (that do manifest) sold as short term shippable options.