Tesla logo is located outside the company’s Tilburg factory and delivery centre.
Karol Serewis | Getty Images
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the automaker has completed its first driverless delivery of new cars to its customers, and is routing its Model Y SUV from Austin, Texas to Gigafactory on June 27th.
The Tesla account of Musk’s social network X shared overnight a video showing a model showing a model y crossing public roads in Austin, including a highway with no human-humans in the driver’s and passenger seats of the car.
Tesla did not mention which versions of software and hardware were installed, used for the car shown in the clip, or when the technology was used when the customer was on the market or when.
The Model Y Owner manual, available on the Tesla website, is the company’s most advanced, partially automated driving system available today to use Tesla’s fully automated driving (supervising) options.
Tesla’s video vehicle was shown to operate without a motorway driver and pass through the car park and around the parking lot before arriving and stopping for handoff to customers. The buyer was waiting at the curb in the apartment building with Tesla employees. (The curb is painted red, indicating that it is a Northtop fire truck.)
In 2016, Tesla shared an autopilot video known as the “Paint It Black” video. This was being performed in a way that exaggerated the car’s self-driving capabilities.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating Tesla for possible safety defects in the FSD system and recently sought a lot of information from the company about its Robotaxi debut after seeing the car violate several traffic rules.
In X’s post on Friday, Musk wrote: “The first fully autonomous delivery of the Tesla Model Y from the factory to customer homes across town, including the highways, was completed one day before the schedule!! Congratulations to the @tesla_ai team (both software and AI chip designs)!”
He also said, “There were no people inside the car, and at any point there was no control over the remote operator. It’s completely autonomous. As far as we know, this is the first fully autonomous drive to either have no people in the car or remotely operate the car on a public highway.”
Mask’s claims about “first fully autonomous drive” on public highways were not accurate. alphabet– Owned Waymo, which already operates commercial Robotaxis services in multiple US cities, has been offering fully autonomous vehicles to its employees since 2024 with Phoenix Freeways, and has since expanded those vehicles to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Tesla’s AI head Ashok Elluswamy said in a post on X that the automaker “literally chose a random customer who ordered a Model Y in the Austin area.” He also said the vehicles delivered were “exactly the same as all Model y produced at the Tesla plant.”
Elluswamy also pointed out in an X post that the driverless delivery model y moved at “max speed 72 mph”. According to the Texas Department of Transport website, most highways in Texas have a maximum speed limit of 70 mph.
Separately, Tesla launched its Robotaxis pilot program last weekend in Austin, which includes 10-20 Model Y SUVs equipped with technology.
The Tesla Robotaxi service selects riders who were mostly influencers and analysts, and the invited riders. The Tesla Robotaxi vehicle operates in the passenger seat with a human safety supervisor and is remotely supervised by operations centre employees.
Since 2016, Musk has promised that Tesla can quickly turn all existing EVs into fully autonomous vehicles. In his master plan, Part Dew, he outlined the future in which all Tesla owners can add cars to the Tesla Shared Fleet with just a tap of a button on the Tesla Phone app.
In 2019, Musk said Tesla would have 1 million Robotaxis on the road by 2020.
Tesla has not fulfilled these promises so far, but this week’s unmanned delivery in Texas has sparked excitement among Musk and his followers of vision.
Meanwhile, Tesla has fought the brand’s backlash in response to the CEO’s often inflammatory political rhetoric, his support for the German far-right extremist AFD, and his work for the Trump administration.
Tesla sales have declined year-over-year for the first five months of 2025, particularly in major markets across Europe, as a result of that rebound. The company is also facing increasing competition with EV manufacturers, especially Chinese brands such as BYD, NIO and Xiaomi, offering new models that are more affordable.
Tesla plans to disclose second quarter vehicle production and delivery numbers on July 2nd.
