NVIDIA's Alpamayo reveal at CES 2026 got people claiming Tesla's finished. Except that's completely wrong.

Tesla's had years of experience here—and it matters because there's a critical gap most miss.

When traditional automakers train their systems, they're mostly relying on lab environments and synthetic datasets. Safe, controlled, but limited. Tesla? Different approach entirely. Real-world data collection at scale changes the game—that's where the actual competitive edge sits.

Hype around new chip announcements is easy. Building production-ready autonomous systems from actual road experience? That's the hard part.