Elon Musk claims Tesla has delivered its first car fully autonomously from the factory to a customer’s home “across town.”
If true, I’d argue that this is actually a bigger deal than its “Robotaxi” with supervisors, but there are still questions about the value of such a system.
The Tesla CEO announced on X:
The first fully autonomous delivery of a Tesla Model Y from factory to a customer home across town, including highways, was just completed a day ahead of schedule!!
Musk has been known to stretch the meaning of the words “fully autonomous” over the years, but he did give a few more details:
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.
This would be somewhat of an improvement from its recently launched Robotaxi service, which involves a Tesla employee in the passenger seat at all times, ready to hit a kill switch.
However, Musk’s last comment is not valid. Several companies have tested fully autonomous driving with no one in the driver’s seat or in the car, and Waymo has even started offering rides to paying passengers on freeways.
Highway driving is part of Waymo’s operations in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, although it is currently only available to employees through Waymo’s internal app in the latter two markets.
Musk says that a video of the milestone is coming soon.
The milestone comes after Tesla has been moving its vehicles autonomously from the end of the line to its delivery lots at factories in the US for the last few months.
Electrek’s Take
With in-car supervisors at all times and numerous issues arising in just the first few days of operations, Tesla’s Robotaxi launch fell short of expectations. For anyone who had previously experienced Tesla’s Supervised Full Self-Driving or a more comprehensive product like Waymo, it didn’t feel special.
An autonomous drive with no one in the car, including highway driving from the factory to a customer’s home, can be more impressive, albeit with some potential caveats.
“No people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point.” In some sense, Tesla’s FSD and Robotaxi programs would be able to do that too, it’s just that Tesla is not confident that they can do it reliably enough over long periods of time to remove the supervision.
Which raises the question: what’s different with this?
No one in the car, so Tesla doesn’t take the safety concerns as seriously? That would be weird, as the safety of people outside of the vehicle, aka other road users, also needs to be considered.
It’s possible that Tesla tested the particular route for this drive several times and then remotely, even potentially with a trailing car, as it was spotted several times in recent months, monitored it with someone ready to stop it at all times.
It wouldn’t be that far from what Tesla already operates, and not something scalable until we see data that shows Tesla can consistently do this safely over hundreds of thousands of miles.
Ultimately, that remains the main issue. Tesla is big on making videos and making showy statements when it comes to self-driving, but it has never released any relevant data. Ever. Let’s see it.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
