The only important question is the tech. Who cares about the rest? If the tech is ready, it will be rolled out when it's rolled out, and Tesla will make a fortune. If the tech isn't ready, then they won't apply for permits because they wouldn't get them anyways, and if they did, they would lose them as soon as accidents started happening. Whether this takes a few months or 6 or 12 or 18 months doesn't really change the present value of the company very much.

Totally agree. The tech leads, everything else follows. My point is simply that the number of app downloads tells us nothing about the state of the tech. It just says there is public interest. Which is good, but not much signal. Elon's performance incentives doesn't tell us anything either.

So what would be signal? The only way we know of (at least I know of) to gleen where Tesla really thinks they are tech-wise is to see where they are in the permitting process. As of right now, they haven't started. That means they don't think they are ready. That could change tomorrow, but that's where we are today.

I do think time frame matters though. Tesla's plan is to come up with an inexpensive, universal solution that eats everyone's lunch. But in the meantime, other companies are converging on the same solution, just from different directions. That is, other companies are already moving into the space that Tesla hopes to occupy. Just today for example, Zoox started offering rides to the public in a dedicated robotaxi vehicle (no driver controls). Waymo of course is offering L4 ride hailing and so on. The longer Tesla waits, the more operational expertise its competitors get, more fleet infrastructure is developed in more cities, software and sensors improve, etc. All this erodes Tesla's potential advantage.