In what could prove more consecutive than its deployment of Robotaxi, Tesla, Tesla announced the very first delivery of fully autonomous vehicles, ending a journey of its Austin Gigafactory directly to a customer – without anyone inside the car or by controlling it remotely.
A video published by Tesla on X (formerly Twitter) shows a model sailing on a varied route through the highways, suburban districts and residential streets before stopping in front of the customer’s apartments complex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrrtw16gale
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had previously teased a start of June 28, confirmed on Friday that the feat had been achieved a day earlier.
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“There was no one in the car and no distant operator controls at any time. Completely autonomous! ” Musk wrote. “To our knowledge, this is the first fully independent motivation without anyone in the car or operating the car remotely on a public road.”
The buyer named Jose responded to the post saying: “It was me! So excited to have been part of this thank you! @elonmusk @Tesla. “”
A first? Not exactly
Despite Musk’s claims, Waymo already operates fully driver -free cars – including highways – for over a year. The unit of autonomous vehicles belonging to Google currently manages highway operations in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco, although its access is limited to employees. Although Tesla’s last decision is an important technical and symbolic realization, this is not the first body in the real navigation industry on a driver -free highway.
Why this counts more than Robotaxie
The announcement comes in the middle of growing skepticism about the Tesla Robotaxi initiative, which was launched earlier this week with safety monitors in vehicles. Despite a strong promotion, several early tests have captured incidents of poor driving behavior: crossing pathways, brutal braking and clumsy interactions at intersections.
Tesla has so far deployed 10 to 20 robotaxis, all model vehicles equipped with complete beta software (FSD). Human security operators are seated in the passenger seat with a killing switch, highlighting the prudent and still supervised nature of the service.
Completely autonomous delivery, however, did not imply a human monitor or distant supervisor, which makes it a more confident demonstration of the progress of the Tesla FSD. That said, it also raises regulatory and security issues, because the Tesla system still does not have the redundancies observed in competitors like Waymo and Cruise.
Tesla continues to rely only on vision -based AI, using only eight cameras without radar, Lidar and without secondary steering or braking systems. On the other hand, the Waymo AVS are equipped with:
- 5 Lidars
- 6 radars
- 29 cameras
- Plus several layers of redundancy in braking, management and computer on board
This difference in design philosophy has fueled a long -standing debate in the community of autonomous vehicles. Musk has long rejected the Lidar as a “crutch”, while some believe that Tesla’s approach is intrinsically less safe, in particular in lighting or mediocre weather conditions. Even the clean Musk AI chatbot, Grok, would have recognized that the adoption of Lidar could reduce ghost braking and improve the performance of FSD at night and during the brightness of the sun.
Where it leaves Tesla
This delivery shows that Tesla is getting closer to her long -supervised autonomy of her city in the city. But it is still far from the large -scale commercial viability, in particular in contrast to the slow but methodical deployment of Waymo of Robotaxi fleets with verified security data and regulatory approval at the level of the state.
Tesla has not revealed if it would change autonomous deliveries or under what conditions they can become common. Nor did it provide data on the number of deputy deputy occurred during the route – a standard metric in the autonomous world used to assess safety and performance.
In the end, this can be less an immediate commercial deployment question and more consolidation of the reputation, especially since Tesla heads for its long -awaited AI 2025 day and tries to ensure investors that its autonomous bets are not stalling.
Although the milestone is important, Tesla always has a long road to come before full driving corresponds to safety records and regulatory acceptance.
