A Tesla Model Y has driven itself from the company’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, to a customer’s doorstep with no one behind the wheel. Or not even somebody watching remotely, according to CEO Elon Musk, who trumpeted the feat as the first “fully autonomous delivery” of its kind.
Musk posted triumphantly on X, the social platform he owns, his claim for a brand new Model Y having navigated highways and city streets entirely alone, from the factory to its owner. Musk described it as a world first: “No people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous!”
Forbidden to park
The customer, reportedly chosen at random, took delivery outside his South Austin apartment complex, with a handful of Tesla staff waiting at the kerb. A bit awkwardly, the car was parked in a zone where it was forbidden to park for fire security reasons.
The company has since shared some videos showing the car’s 24-kilometer journey, trundling through local streets and finally reaching the customer’s home. Tesla’s head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said the car reached speeds up to 115 km/hour.
Geofenced area
The test comes just a week after Tesla launched its first Robotaxi pilot in Austin, where around twenty Model Ys have begun shuttling invited riders, mostly influencers, around a geofenced area. But, crucially, these have a safety driver on board at all times. Until now, that’s been the standard across the industry: a human supervisor ready to take control if things go wrong.
In that sense, the driverless delivery marks a notable leap for Tesla’s long-hyped self-driving ambitions. Musk has been promising fully autonomous Teslas since 2016, once claiming there’d be a million robotaxis on the roads by 2020. That hasn’t materialized.
Instead, Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system still requires human oversight by law, a fact spelled out in its own user manuals. But the car in the video is operating on public roads alone.
Raising questions
That raises more than a few questions. What happens if the system fails en route? How does Tesla plan to intervene if a driverless car ends up stuck or, worse, causes an accident?
Who do you address when you’re the victim of an accident caused by a self-driving Tesla? And will regulators tolerate a wider rollout, given that Tesla is already under investigation by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over concerns about its driver-assistance systems?
There’s also a trust issue. Tesla has never published data to back up its boldest autonomy claims. The infamous ‘Paint It Black’ Autopilot demo from 2016 turned out to be staged.
Engineers later testified that the car couldn’t perform the route on its own. Rival firms like Waymo have quietly logged millions of supervised — and increasingly unsupervised — miles on public roads, in some cases with paying passengers.
Cameras or lidar?
And then there’s the technological split. Waymo utilizes a combination of radars, cameras, and lidar, whereas Tesla relies solely on footage from cameras in self-driving mode.
Easier and less costly to scale up on all models, even those already delivered, but less reliable in bad weather conditions. That lower performance level has urged the CEO of Ford, Jim Farley, to drop his negotiations with Tesla to license their self-driving technology in favor of Waymo.
For now, Tesla hasn’t said when or if fully autonomous self-delivery might become common. It’s unlikely to replace fleets of car hauliers or delivery drivers overnight, though it would be practical as the sector is grappling to enrol truck drivers for its logistics (especially in Europe).
A milestone?
Tesla’s short video, filmed on a clear, sunny day along a predictable route, feels more like a controlled stunt than a true sign of a driverless revolution. Insiders believe the car was overshadowed by a pursuit vehicle or trailer to oversee the journey.
Nonetheless, it keeps the spotlight on Tesla’s bold promise: that one day, every car might deliver itself, drive itself, and earn its owner money while they sleep. If that vision ever comes to fruition, the short solo trip across Austin will be remembered as a milestone.
