The Car Delivers Itself from Factory to Home... Tesla Achieves First Unmanned Delivery

"Recorded a Maximum Speed of 116 km/h"

A Tesla vehicle has successfully traveled from the factory to a customer's home using autonomous driving.

A newly assembled Model Y vehicle at the factory departed the factory on its own without a driver, drove on the highway, passed through the city, and arrived at the customer's home with full autonomous driving. Tesla YouTube

On June 27 (local time), CEO Elon Musk announced on X (formerly Twitter) that "the first fully autonomous delivery of a Tesla Model Y was completed a day ahead of schedule." According to Musk, a newly assembled Model Y vehicle departed the factory on its own without a driver, drove on the highway, passed through the city, and arrived at the customer's home with full autonomous driving. Musk also emphasized that "there was absolutely no one in the car, and it was never controlled remotely at any point," stressing that it was "fully autonomous driving."

Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's head of Autopilot and AI software, added to Musk's post that "the maximum speed was 72 miles per hour (about 116 km/h)," to which Musk responded, "That's very fast." The speed limit on U.S. highways is generally between 65 and 75 miles per hour (about 105 to 121 km/h).

Tesla is currently offering autonomous delivery services only within the Austin area. The Model Y used for this autonomous delivery was equipped with the robotaxi version of FSD (Full Self-Driving), and after the vehicle was delivered, the FSD software was deleted.

Since no video or photo was attached to the post, other X users requested that a related video be uploaded. Musk replied, "The video will be out soon," and Tesla later uploaded a video on YouTube showing the Model Y autonomously delivering itself to the customer. In the video, the Model Y leaves the Texas Giga Factory and starts driving on the highway. When the car in front moves slowly, it changes lanes to overtake, and in situations where it has to wait at a traffic light, it gradually decelerates. After traveling about 24 kilometers in 30 minutes, it stops in front of the customer's apartment.

Previously, on June 10, Musk had announced on X that "the first Tesla to drive itself from the end of the factory line to the customer's home will come on June 28." June 28 is also Musk's birthday. The achievement was made a day earlier than originally planned.

Until now, automakers have invested considerable effort and cost in delivering new cars to customers, but Tesla has become the first in the industry to introduce a fully autonomous delivery method, allowing the car to deliver itself to the customer's home and replacing the traditional process. However, Bloomberg pointed out that "it is unclear how significant autonomous delivery itself will be in Tesla's business operations."

Meanwhile, after Musk declared the "successful launch of the robotaxi" on June 23, Tesla's stock price rose by more than 8%. However, it was later revealed that there were multiple traffic law violations during the fully autonomous robotaxi pilot operation, which targeted a small number of social media influencers and others in a limited area of Austin, Texas. As a result, the stock price closed lower for three consecutive days from the following day through the day of this article. The closing price of $325.78 on this day is about 20% lower than the annual high for this year.