I think it's a mix of effects. Tesla is definitely pushing car engineering in some respects, but as far as I can tell the only thing new in this story is that the feature was added to the cars in a software update. Do you really think Audi would be #1 on Hacker News if they updated the 5 series over the air to stay in it's lane automatically while on the highway?

I've had a bit of cognitive dissonance recently while reading Elon Musk's comments on Apple's electric car project because I have to remind myself Tesla isn't owned by Apple. Tesla does do some great engineering, but I think they have also Apple levels of hype within technology circles.