The franchising itself isn’t the problem - it’s a valid way for a company to scale up a service.

The issue is that they’re rolling it out before Tesla’s self-driving software has been proven to be safe. And there are questions about whether a vehicle without a steering wheel or side mirrors is actually road-legal.

Additionally, I’m not sure what kind of checks Tesla is doing for the franchisees. Will they let them roll out a service anywhere they like, irrespective of whether FSD is optimized for those road conditions? Based on the way they’ve approached FSD with consumers, my guess would be yes.

Except they are not "rolling it out".

What exists is a web page where you can express an interest in that offering.

But you can't buy a cybercab today.

This whole article is much ado about nothing.

Tesla has a page to gauge interest in something they might offer at some point in the future.

That's it. That's all there is to it.