In Austin, Texas, Tesla has crossed a threshold that once existed only in speculation — a passenger vehicle with no steering wheel, no pedals, and no human fallback now moves through city streets carrying real riders. The Cybercab's debut marks a genuine inflection point in the long arc of autonomous transportation, yet the world received it with skepticism rather than celebration, as markets fell and regulators opened investigations. It is a familiar tension in the history of invention: the moment a technology becomes real is often the moment its promises are most rigorously questioned.