Elon Musk's early birthday present to himself—the first Tesla just drove itself from its factory straight to the customer
In its second milestone in a week, Tesla arranged for a Model Y crossover to drive itself from its Texas factory to a customer in downtown Austin some 30 minutes away. It follows the successful launch of its robotaxi service this past Sunday. City officials, however, told Fortune they had no choice in the matter: 'the City does not have the authority to regulate these vehicles.'
Tesla celebrated a historic first on Friday when a new Model Y left the factory in Austin and—without anyone in the vehicle—drove itself to a waiting customer a half-hour away.
Already the second milestone this week after the commercial deployment of his robotaxi service, it marks an early birthday present for CEO Elon Musk. The entrepreneur had promised it to Tesla supporters for June 28, which is coincidentally when he turns 54 years old.
'The first fully autonomous delivery of a Tesla Model Y from factory to a customer home across town, including highways, was just completed a day ahead of schedule,' Musk posted on Friday. 'There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous.'
Since this is completely unsupervised full-self driving (FSD) in its first-ever practical application for the brand, Tesla uploaded a video as proof. It documents from various angles the roughly 30-minute drive from the Austin factory to 1515 S. Lamar Blvd. downtown, where its new owner took possession.
Whether this delivery is just a one-off test or part of a broader plan to revamp distribution remains unclear. While it might in theory save on at least part of the $1,390 destination fee Tesla charges, it risks scratching or denting the vehicle in transit—or even just arriving at the customer dirty, looking like it had just been through a rainstorm.
Additionally, the Model Y's range maxes out at an official 357 miles with real world tests indicating a lower range. Unless it could drive from one Tesla service center to the next, so that an employee could recharge it, the range would limit it to a radius inside Texas.
Lastly, regulations on the ground could make it outright illegal as state governments currently determine under what conditions autonomous vehicles, if at all, can drive on their roads.
In the case of Austin, for example, city officials told Fortune they had no say in what Musk's company did.
'Tesla made the City aware of their intent to deliver a fully autonomous vehicle,' a spokesman for the Texas state capital said. 'While the City does not have the authority to regulate these vehicles, we will continue to work with the company to provide feedback if public safety issues arise.'
The autonomous delivery also elicited skepticism as to whether Tesla might be misleading people into believing the technology is more robust than it really is. Some pointed to the fact the video was not livestreamed, but rather uploaded later.
In addition, the robotaxi service that began operation in Austin on Sunday still only operates during certain hours, does not drive to the airport, and features a safety monitor in the front passenger seat at all times.
Moreover, the timing is advantageous, as Musk has been attempting to shift investor focus towards the rollout of his robotaxi technology and away from its struggling core business of selling EVs.
This coming week, Tesla is expected to publish second-quarter global production and delivery figures that show a 14% decline in deliveries to 383,000 vehicles, according to the median estimate polled by the company's investor relations team.
While a few skeptics are bound to remain mistrustful no matter what, the suspicion is rooted in part in experience.
Nearly nine years ago, Tesla posted a similar demonstration when it released the 'Paint It Black' video. It claimed that a vehicle was driving entirely on its own and the human behind the wheel was not even there to monitor for safety.
'The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons,' it stated in the video posted in October 2016. 'He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.'
Tesla's AI director Ashok Elluswamy later testified in a sworn deposition the footage was not meant to be an accurate representation of the technology. Both the video and the blog post have since been expunged entirely from Tesla's site, but thanks to YouTube and web archives they are still viewable.
There was another, more recent example, as well. In October 2024, Musk showcased prototype robots interacting with human guests at an event without telling anyone they were tele-operated remotely by humans.
Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
But Elluswamy, who has risen the ranks at Tesla since working on the 2016 video, denied there was any trickery with the self-driving delivery video on Friday.
'Literally chose a random customer who ordered a Model Y in the Austin area. Vehicle is exactly the same as every Model Y produced in the Tesla factory,' he replied to a question on X.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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