It was true. They had 2-3 working tests running on their machines by the end of the company. They sold over 100.
In my mind, this is the same as advertising "the human is only there for liability reasons" on an L2 ADAS system.
As to what Tesla is, the moment people accept that it's an EV company, I will be happy. The market currently does not, largely due to the insane promises of the company's CEO.
Let's not forget that Elizabeth Holmes was acquitted of defrauding patients. She was convicted of defrauding investors. What's the difference?
Now, I’m not happy that Tesla is still calling the driving assistance software “autopilot” given some governments are criticising this name choice as misleading, but it’s not like the (limited and not ready) software is completely fictional — it can actually get people from A to B by itself, even if though it really isn’t at the quality level where this is a generally wise replacement for most humans, but only for, e.g. impaired humans in a medical emergency and even then it’s really only sane on highways (old story, but probably still illustrative based on the published safety statistics): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/08/tesla-mod...
However, considering Tesla as an EV company rather than as an AI company: it does what it says on the tin. There’s no secret gasoline tank hiding inside the batteries.