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Is your assertion that the car shaped object we watched drive for a distance and then levitate over a distance was something other than a car that actually flies?
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You watched a demo of a car-shaped object flying. Was it an actual car, or just a shell that looks like a car? We won't know until it's actually on sale and in customer hands what this is going to be.

It wouldn't be the first time Musk demoed something and promised something and then never ships.

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What distance did you actually see it "drive"? There is no evidence that the car shaped object was anything but a lightweight shell using compressed air to levitate and do tricks like any modern day drone can do.

Here's an RC car that can drive on the ceiling: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uR_mNcRlNsA

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There's an obvious tradeoff between range and "flight" time, but if you ask your favorite AI it will do some napkin math for you that shows a 4 cold gas thruster system with a 3 foot diameter COPV (at pressures attainable by an onboard compressor) could hover a ~4000 lbs vehicle for a few seconds.
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The car being filmed and the car that did the stunts are not necessarily the same. See this image for what seems to be an empty husk of the car that actually "flew": https://imgur.com/a/uH9qCxr
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That is clearly not the same car considering you can see the car they are talking about off to the right in the distance (it, rather suspiciously, never leaves the curved vertical track area).

You fell for Elon's three-cup monte.

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you all sound absolutely insane btw
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Well, Elon said the final prod car would be lighter; whether or not they achieve that goal, the strong implication: the car has a battery and power train in it. Also, we saw it drive up the first part of the ramp without any air seeming to come out the back, and reverse down slowly; there don't seem to be forward facing fans/jets from the looks of the air coming out. I'd say Occam's razor is that the car has a full electric system in it.
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I don't doubt it's got an electric system in it. I doubt it's got a battery sized for anything beyond that demo, a sufficiently rigid frame for road use, a reasonable steering and suspension system, etc.

My general assumption is that anything and everything that wasn't necessary for that demo was removed to trim enough weight to make the demo possible.

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Do you know what a race car is? A race car is a car with, "anything and everything that wasn't necessary for that [Race] was removed to trim enough weight to make the [Race] possible."

Tesla's website literally says the Rocket version is "Not approved for public road use." And has "Seating for one." Any battery that can perform that demo can certainly power basic driving. You're accusing them of deception when every modification you describe is plainly stated on their website. (E.g. It's drive-by-wire, and the seats are modeled chassis elements. Yes, it's wildly minimal.)

The expectation that a vehicle that did a literal standing barrel roll (even if only a single time) be functionally equivalent to a Toyota Camry is madness to me. The much more interesting question is what type of localization system in 3D space were they running?

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I can move my gas powered car that far if I leave it in gear and run it with the starter. Is my car electric?
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Watch The man with the golden gun. You’ll see a car do a corkscrew jump. Does that mean all cars of that brand could do that jump?

What we saw was impressive, but it’s a trick. The car’s tanks are surely empty after this, and now you have a loud compressor filling them up for minutes. You can’t use those thrusters near people and cars cause you’re at risk of getting them in trouble.

It’s part of a long history of useless tech in supercars. Impressive, but useless.

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How is that a trick? So far it seems that was exactly what was advertised?
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Tom Cruise famously does his own stunts, one of which involved driving a motorcycle off a cliff. That does not mean it is advisable or repeatable to drive your motorcycle off a cliff.
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Would you say a bullfrog that can hop from pad to pad can fly?
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A frog can't hover for any amount of time.
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Neither can this car. Unless 'any amount of time' is sub second, then fine, it can hover. But then a brick on a ballistic trajectory also hovers when it is at the top of that trajectory.
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No, a ballistic trajectory is at no point “hovering”. That was literally my point regarding the frog.
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I'd assert that it being something other than a car is an extremely reasonable assumption given all evidence available.
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What is demo'd and what actually ships are two completely different things

I'm not saying its impossible but it seems pretty naive to just assume on face value

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I certainly don't think it was a car that flies. It could be a car that can do dangerous party tricks for no practical reason but I kinda doubt that do. Hell we live in an AI world now, why are you so confident it's what they claim it is, what in Musk or Tesla's track record indicates that this is anything but a hype effort?
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If they used AI to fake a live demo in front of a bunch of people, that would be exceedingly impressive.
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The cyber truck is more bulletproof than any normal car, there are tons of videos of it stopping handgun rounds.

For what it’s worth, my $600 hunting rifle will go clean through both sides of any bulletproof vest, and it’s nothing special.

For everything that is bulletproof, there is always a calibre of projectile that will go through it.

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Some old cars bodies probably could stop small pistol rounds too.
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I hope so or a lot of old cop movies have some ‘splainin to do!
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