Tesla Shares Video of Autonomous Car Driving Itself from Factory to Customer

In a bid to boost its autonomous driving credentials, Tesla has released a 30-minute video purportedly showing a Model Y driving itself from the company’s Gigafactory facility in Austin, Texas, to a customer’s home approximately 24km away. The video, published on X (formerly Twitter) and reposted by CEO Elon Musk, shows the car navigating through urban areas and highways with no one in the driver’s or front passenger seats. 

The video comes shortly after Tesla began autonomous taxi operations in Austin with a small fleet of Model Ys. Only 10 cars are reportedly in the company’s first Robotaxi fleet, and only hand-picked Tesla fans and influencers have so far been allowed to book them as part of an invite-only early access phase. The Robotaxis operate only within a limited area of the city. A human “safety monitor” may be present, sitting in the front seat, and the cabs may also be followed by another Tesla vehicle to monitor them. Despite this, several mishaps and near-misses have been reported, including cars ignoring clear road signs and markings, driving on the wrong side of a road, and braking unexpectedly.

As far back as 2016, Elon Musk had promised that Tesla owners would be able to summon their cars from anywhere in the country, or send them off to park themselves, completely autonomously. He famously announced that Tesla would be able to demonstrate a completely autonomous drive from Los Angeles, California, to New York City, including completely hands-free charging, by the end of 2017. 

Musk also stated that drivers will be able to go to sleep behind the wheel, leaving all driving and navigating operations to the car itself, however even the company’s optional Full Self Driving package has since been renamed to Full Self Driving (Assisted). Tesla officially states that these capabilities only “reduce your overall workload as a driver” and are “intended for use with with a fully attentive driver”. 

The autonomous customer delivery was achieved using Tesla’s Robotaxi software, not the Autopilot and Full Self Driving (Assisted) features that are currently available to Tesla owners. It is not yet clear whether the company intended this only as a one-off demonstration to fulfill another of Musk’s predictions, or whether more such deliveries will be made. Musk has since stated that the car was not being operated remotely.

While fans online have praised Tesla and Musk for this achievement, others have questioned how such a system might work in less favourable weather, and what the regulatory environment around such autonomous vehicle journeys is.

Meanwhile, Tesla's impending launch in India is eagerly awaited by fans here, with the first showroom reportedly set to open in just a few weeks. While the Model Y is expected to be the first model on sale here, there's no official indication of whether Full Self Driving (Assisted) will be offered.