As far as I can tell, these companies convinced their investors that they're going to be the next Uber, so they need to look like they're making direct progress toward that goal. Driving around a retirement home might seem like a distraction when Tesla claims to be shipping a fully autonomous car by the end of 2019.
Tesla claims things, and this is a perpetually moving goal. IIRC, they first announced it in 2015, to be completed by 2016. Well...I assume it could be a business tactic, to force competitors' energy in this direction, just as you have noted.
