Watch Tesla’s self-driving Model Y perform a world first

In what is being described as a world first, a new car has just driven itself from the factory to the customer’s home all by itself, with no one inside the vehicle.

The feat was performed by a Tesla Model Y on Friday, with the electric-car maker posting a video (top) of the car’s journey, which used Tesla’s driver-assist Full Self-Driving (FSD) system to reach its destination.

And this wasn’t just a simple journey from Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory in Austin to a residential address five minutes away. The trip took 30 minutes and really put the FSD system through its paces. 

“This Tesla drove itself from Gigafactory Texas to its new owner’s home 30 minutes away — crossing parking lots, highways, and the city to reach its new owner,” Tesla said in a comment accompanying the video, adding that the journey marked ”the first autonomous vehicle delivery of its kind in the world.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk was clearly delighted by the achievement, posting on X that the autonomous delivery had been completed a day ahead of schedule. 

Musk added: “There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous! To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully autonomous drive with no people in the car or remotely operating the car on a public highway.” However, as noted by some of those responding to his post, Alphabet-owned Waymo has been operating fully driverless vehicles on public highways for more than a year, so Musk is wrong on this point.

Autonomous self-delivery like this has the potential to streamline the car delivery process, reduce costs, and eliminate trips, whether it’s the customer heading to the dealership to pick up their new car, or staff heading back to base after dropping it off. It’s a given that Tesla would like to deliver more of its new cars in this way, but it’s not clear what its immediate plans are for such a system.

The first-ever autonomous vehicle delivery can be marked down as a win for Tesla, and offers it some positive coverage in the wake of some less than celebratory headlines regarding its recently launched robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, a week ago.

Shortly after its 10 Model Y robotaxis hit the road, reports emerged of some of the vehicles appearing to violate road rules as they carried passengers from A to B. The cars are being monitored remotely by Tesla staff and also have a human safety monitor in the front passenger seat who can intervene at any time.