- A Tesla Model Y has been delivered to its owner fully autonomously.
- The electric crossover drove nearly 30 minutes without anyone onboard.
- The car was equipped with robotaxi software, which was replaced by FSD.
Getting a new vehicle could become a lot easier as Tesla has released video of the world’s first autonomous car delivery. According to the automaker, the Model Y drove approximately 30 minutes from their Gigafactory in Texas to its owner’s residence.
The full clip was uploaded to YouTube and it notes the electric crossover was equipped with “robotaxi software,” which was then replaced with Full Self-Driving (Supervised) upon delivery. This is interesting for a couple of reasons and it’s notable the vehicle didn’t have a safety driver onboard like the robotaxis operating in Austin, Texas.
More: Tesla’s Robotaxis Aren’t The Same As The Model Y You Can Buy
While the Tesla faithful will likely dissect the video frame by frame, the Model Y seems to have performed remarkably well. It even handled detours and numerous street-parked vehicles with ease.
In typical Tesla fashion, the company didn’t say much about the effort, but CEO Elon Musk said “There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point.” He also said, “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, way back in January of 2024, Waymo announced it would “begin testing its fully autonomous passenger cars without a human driver on freeways in Phoenix to soon help Waymo One riders get where they’re going safely and efficiently.”
Regardless, there are still a lot of questions and we’re curious if staff were needed to remove the robotaxi software and replace it with FSD (Supervised). If they weren’t, this could open up a new era of car buying where people purchase online and have their cars delivered to them. Once there, an over-the-air update would presumably swap out the software, eliminating the need to ever step foot in a dealership or interact with anyone else.
