with the drive motors in the wheel hub,
Such a configuration will make for an awful, badly handling shitbox.
You want as much mass as possible supported by the suspension as possible. Putting heavy ass motors in the hubs will subject the motors the full brunt of every bump and pothole encountered on the road. Likewise, the increased mass of the wheels will make them slower to move out of the way when those potholes are hit, giving the tires, rims, etc even more of a beating than they already get driving on the roads.
There is a reason why all those complex joints are in cars, and it's not just to increase billable hours for repair shops.
And if that is what Tesla is doing, they are ignoring the hard learned lessons of the automotive industry just to have to learn them all over again themselves.