I think part of Elon's strategy is announcing <something> being around the corner in order to scare off competitors and investment into alternatives because, well, Telsa is already so far ahead.
This is why Tesla's "actuals" are delivered so many years after the dates of the initial pronouncements (for those few things that have so far been delivered at all).
That is the impression those pronouncements are intending to give. My point is that it may not reflect reality; it's trying to present "we are way ahead", whether they are or not, as reality, in order to incentivise investment in their company, rather than in a competitors, whilst at the same time scaring away those thinking about attempting to compete by making the moat look wider than it is.
I legitimately don't know who's ahead of who and where the state-of-the-art currently sits, but I do know that I hear far more about Tesla's vision roadmap than Waymo's or Uber's or anyone else's.
This is why Tesla's "actuals" are delivered so many years after the dates of the initial pronouncements (for those few things that have so far been delivered at all).