Tesla fans are starting a rumor that McDonald’s is going to partner with Tesla on its Robotaxi/Cybercab based on a cryptic message the fast-food chain posted.
This is the post that started the speculation:
The date is what triggered speculation from Tesla fans since the automaker is planning to unveil its Robotaxi at an event on October 10.
They started speculating that Tesla will partner with McDonald’s to do food delivery:
The fact that Elon Musk responded to the post with a laughing emoji helped sparked even more speculation.
Musk also started following a McDonald’s marketing executive after the post.
Electrek’s Take
It’s not completely impossible. Automated food deliveries is nothing new and it’s already being done in some markets. It’s possible that Tesla partners with a fast-food chain to handle their deliveries, but it would have to be in a geo-fenced area.
And Tesla actually partnered with Mcdonald’s before on a McFleurry Cybertruck-inspired spoon in China, but funny enough, Elon didn’t even know about this and he thought it was fake.
Now, with that said, Tesla fans are extrapolating here.
Top comment by Al
Muskateers are basically QAnon at this point so yes, I could see how a rumor like this would circumvent logic and provoke this sort of response. Getting all wound up about a $30,000+self driving car, that is nowhere near being allowed to operate with no driver, delivering $7.00 burgers to people is absurd. Does someone want to take a stab at what this business model will look like? How exactly would you see positive margins?
The package in the McDonald’s post reads: “Special item coming to a chat near you.” This appears to have to do with a chat product or a reference to something with a streaming service since it addresses the “chat” like streamers do.
Therefore, I give a very low probability of this rumor being accurate.
Update: as suspected, this appears to have something to do with streaming as McDonalds just shared this post with Kai Cenat, one of the world’s biggest streamers:
It sounds like Tesla fans can forget about that one.
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