Self driving cars in general are a useless technology demo. Not just TSLA (although more so because of the repeated false claims).
It’s a way for the car industry to fight against their extinction.
In the beginning the argument was: “it’s not the cars killing people, it’s the damn ‘jay walkers’ (term invented by auto industry, btw). Get those people off the road and cram them into the sides of the streets so my fat car can ride freely!11”
That campaign worked, to some extent, and now we have a patch work of sidewalks.
Then later…
Eisenhower (inspired by the ability for the German military to easily mobilize across the country via autobahn) pushed for interstate highways subsidized by the people. Auto industry capitalized on this and this contributed to the invention of the American suburb and slow decay of once walkable urban cores.
Cars were a luxury item. Now it’s a necessity, along with a whole laundry list of items for a car owner:
- gas
- time spent looking for charger, and charging
- parking (less space at home for living and instead using space for car)
- time spent finding public parking
- parking fees
- time spent in traffic
- car repairs
- car maintenance
- car insurance
- yearly taxes for registration
- car sales tax
- car depreciation
- toll fees for turnpike/regional highway
In recent years, people have been realizing how car centric transportation cannot scale (ie, induced demand); and is an environmental disaster.
Now the auto industry’s answer is: “oh we have self driving cars!!1 that’s going to fix it. It’s the damn human that can’t drive!! Have aRtIfICiAl iNtElLiGeNcE hold the wheel! As for pollution, electric cars will fix that” (totally ignoring the carbon emissions to transition to an EV, increased brake dust and tire wear pollution, and rolling 10 yr contribution to e-waste in the form of batteries, and a grid that has traditionally relied on non-renewable sources)