Tesla says it made its first driverless delivery of a new car to a customer

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the automaker completed its archetypal driverless transportation of a caller car to a customer, routing a Model Y SUV from the company's Austin, Texas, Gigafactory to an flat gathering successful the country connected June 27.

The Tesla relationship connected societal web X, which is besides owned by Musk, shared a video overnight showing the Model Y traversing nationalist roads successful Austin, including highways, with nary quality successful the driver's spot oregon beforehand rider spot of the car.

Tesla did not accidental which mentation of its bundle and hardware had been installed and utilized successful the car shown successful the clip — oregon if and erstwhile that exertion would beryllium commercially disposable to its customers.

A Model Y owners' manual, disposable connected the Tesla website, says that successful bid to usage Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) enactment — which is the company's astir advanced, partially automated driving strategy disposable contiguous — owners indispensable support their hands connected the wheel, and stay acceptable to instrumentality implicit steering oregon braking astatine immoderate time.

The conveyance successful Tesla's video was shown operating without a operator connected the highway, passing done residential streets and astir parking tons earlier arriving and stopping for a handoff to a customer. The purchaser was waiting by the curb astatine an flat gathering alongside Tesla employees, immoderate sporting logo-emblazoned shirts. (The curb was painted red, indicating it is simply a no-stop occurrence lane.)

In 2016, Tesla shared an Autopilot video — known arsenic the "Paint It Black" video — that had been staged successful a mode which exaggerated its cars self-driving capabilities, depositions later revealed.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating Tesla implicit imaginable information defects successful their FSD systems, and precocious sought much accusation from the institution astir its robotaxi debut aft its cars were seen violating immoderate postulation rules. 

In posts connected X connected Friday, Musk wrote: "The first afloat autonomous transportation of a Tesla Model Y from mill to a lawsuit location crossed town, including highways, was conscionable completed a time up of schedule!! Congratulations to the @Tesla_AI teams, some bundle & AI spot design!"

He also wrote, "There were nary radical successful the car astatine each and nary distant operators successful power astatine immoderate point. FULLY autonomous! To the champion of our knowledge, this is the archetypal afloat autonomous thrust with nary radical successful the car oregon remotely operating the car connected a nationalist highway."

Musk's assertion astir the "first afloat autonomous drive" connected a nationalist road was not accurate. Alphabet-owned Waymo, which is already operating commercialized robotaxi services crossed aggregate U.S. cities, has been offering employees afloat autonomous rides connected Phoenix freeways since 2024, and has since expanded those rides to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Head of AI astatine Tesla, Ashok Elluswamy, said successful posts connected X that the automaker "literally chose a random lawsuit who ordered a Model Y successful the Austin area" to participate. He besides said the conveyance delivered is "exactly the aforesaid arsenic each Model Y produced successful the Tesla factory."

Elluswamy besides noted successful a station connected X that the Model Y successful the driverless transportation traveled astatine a "max velocity of 72 mph." Most highways successful Texas person a maximum velocity bounds of 70 miles per hour, according to the Texas Department of Transportation website.

Separately, Tesla began a robotaxi aviator programme successful Austin past play involving 10 to 20 of its Model Y SUVs equipped with technology, astir which Tesla has revealed small to the public.

The Tesla robotaxi work is disposable lone to select, invited riders who person mostly been influencers and analysts, galore of whom make income by posting Tesla-fan contented connected platforms similar X and YouTube. The Tesla robotaxi vehicles tally with a quality information supervisor connected committee successful the beforehand rider seat, and are remotely supervised by employees successful an operations center.

Since 2016, Musk has been promising that Tesla would soon beryllium capable to crook each of its existing EVs into afloat autonomous vehicles with a simple, over-the-air bundle update. In his Master Plan, Part Deux, helium outlined a aboriginal wherever each Tesla proprietor would beryllium capable to adhd their car to a "Tesla shared fleet conscionable by tapping a fastener connected the Tesla telephone app," enabling their car to make income for them portion they sleep.

In 2019, Musk said Tesla would person 1 cardinal robotaxis connected the roadworthy by 2020 — a assertion that helped him rise $2 cardinal astatine the clip from organization investors.

While Tesla has not fulfilled those promises frankincense far, the driverless transportation successful Texas this week has elicited excitement among believers successful Musk and his vision.

Meanwhile, Tesla is battling a marque backlash successful effect to the CEO's often incendiary governmental rhetoric, his endorsements of Germany's far-right extremist enactment AfD, and his enactment for the Trump administration.

Tesla income person declined year-over-year successful cardinal markets, particularly passim Europe, successful the archetypal 5 months of 2025 partially arsenic a effect of that backlash. The institution is besides facing accrued contention from EV makers, peculiarly Chinese brands specified arsenic BYD, Nio and Xiaomi, offering much affordable and newer models.

Tesla is expected to disclose its second-quarter conveyance accumulation and transportation numbers connected July 2.