Obviously they’re not literally breaking the laws of physics, but they’re breaking what has traditionally been possible putting power through tires alone.
Let's say I ask a SW engineer to describe the code he wrote, and he repeatedly (!) refers to the addition of an index table as "breaking the laws of computer science".
He can clarify more than once that the achieved result would be impossible with sole event-processing alone, and obviously I know that he didn't break any "laws of computer science" by adding a indexed database.
But every time he explains his work with these words, he will lose a bit of credibility.
For the average laymen, it’s a simple enough explanation that works to get the point across while keeping it “fun”
Who do you think the demo of a flying car - with no details on range or price or weight or battery size or torque or really anything technical - was actually for?