Even in the midst of a pandemic, never doubt the world's ability to surprise. This week, we tracked some remarkable trends. Serious crashes are, blessedly, down in California, according to a new analysis--people aren't really traveling after that whole shelter-in-place thing. While delivery robots (and the companies that built them) are trying their best to pitch in right now, not all are ready for showtime. Oh, and Elon Musk went on a tear this week, calling shelter-in-place orders "facist" even as he celebrated Tesla's strong first quarter.

This week, we talked to people trying to help stem the hurt of the Covid-19 pandemic--with mixed success. One company, Zipline, is using drones to help deliver virus testing supplies and personal protective equipment in Ghana. It has accelerated efforts to bring the approach to the US, though don't expect to see helper drones in the air before later this year. Farmers, packers, and processors want to get their produce, milk, and meat to consumers, but complex supply chains--and basic economics--are proving hard to hack. Let's get you caught up.

But sometimes we take a look back. This week, we ran an excerpt from a new book that did just that, by examining how one psychologist's tireless investigation into WWII plane crashes inadvertently created an entire new field of study, and one that contributed directly to everyone's favorite 20th century tech product: the Macintosh computer. We also wondered what would happen if the makers of this year's (good!) car film Ford v Ferrari had included a bit more gearhead porn. It's been a week: Let's get you caught up. In an interview, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi likened Saudi Arabia's assasnation of Jamal Kashoggi to the decisions that lead to the death of an Arizona woman who was struck and killed by a testing self-driving Uber vehicle.

It was an exciting week to be an electric vehicle fan--if a real up-and-down one. On Monday, Elon Musk welcomed investors to Tesla's Palo Alto headquarters for the company's first Autonomy Day, where he made some serious news: He promised an all-electric, 1-million-car fleet of self-driving Tesla taxis would roam the Earth by next year. The electric carmaker, which loves to do things differently, used the event to tout its new self-driving chip, and double down on its aggressive and heterodox approach to autonomous vehicles. Who cares if the self-driving experts are skeptical? By Thursday, electric vehicle fandom got messier.

On the floor of the New York Auto Show this week, Genesis showed off its sweet little Mint concept, an electric two-seater with a very abbreviated sedan body. The Hyundai luxury arm does not, however, have any plans to put the adorable thing into production--perhaps because, as we learned this week, getting world-changing tech into the market takes a fair amount of elbow grease. Elon Musk's Boring Company is slowly making its way through the necessary paperwork to make its DC to Baltimore Loop concept a real, live thing. Uber is rounding up the oodles of cash it needs to develop self-driving vehicles. "Flying taxi" engineers are trying to get their concepts past now-nervous aviation regulators.

Uber, once the enfant terrible of the tech industry, put on its big kid pants and publicly filed for IPO this week, attempting to prove, once and for all, that it's got its crap together. Its filing reveals a sprawling company that's made strides since ex-CEO Travis Kalanick was dropping Boober jokes back in 2014--but one that also has a few big, hulking problems on the horizon, like fighting drivers on employee classification issues and, you know, achieving profitability. Also in transpo people and companies trying to prove themselves: Tesla goes off-menu for the $35,000 Model 3, ostensibly to shore up cash and streamline production; another industry insider says, yes, self-driving car hype got ahead of reality; and Audi argues its slightly dispiriting E-tron range numbers matter little compared to its luxury features. Let's get you caught up. Why do new premium electric vehicles keep coming up short on range?

Allow me to get a bit philosophical here: History is only smooth in retrospect. Few earth-shaking shifts are inevitable. Change only looks easy from a rocking chair. Which is all to say, it was a rocky week for electric vehicles, the motorized transports that are supposed to help us save the planet. Tesla underperformed in its first quarter production and delivery numbers, pulling that one-step-back routine after taking two steps forward in late 2018.

Let the unicorn feast begin! Now the big question, which will answer itself in the weeks and months to come: How do investors feel about the prospect of the mustachioed company actually making money? Still, plenty of transportation interestings were happening off Wall Street this week. We took a look at the current state of automotive software safety standards, and talked to people wondering how self-driving cars might fit into the mix. We reminded ourselves that self-driving cars aren't going to be driverless for a while, and about the role of remote drivers in the ecosystem.

Thinking about the fantastic pie-in-the-sky future is always a fun exercise. I, too, want a self-driving car. But some weeks, it's clear everyone needs to come down to earth. This was one of them. Tesla sued two other electric vehicle companies focusing on self-driving for trade secret theft, proving that building this tech will be a grind.

Nearly two months into 2019, it's been a mostly quiet year for Tesla. It closed 2018 with two profitable quarters and started talking up the much-anticipated Model Y. It laid off 7 percent of its workforce, but that seemed more a sign of understanding the difficulties of making it in a brutal industry than failing to do so. This week, though, saw the return of the sort of headlines familiar to those who follow the upstart automaker: CEO Elon Musk made a hard-to-believe promise about the state of Tesla's self-driving technology. Consumer Reports stopped recommending the Model 3 over quality-control issues.