Tesla just pulled off its first "autonomous delivery" of a customer car. A Model Y drove about 15 miles solo from the Tesla factory to the owner’s apartment in Austin, Texas. This came days after Tesla kicked off a limited robotaxi service in the same city.
The car used the same software as the robotaxis but was downgraded on delivery to the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) version. That means the software still requires drivers to stay alert and ready to take over. Tesla says no one was inside the vehicle, and Elon Musk claims no remote help was involved.
Tesla released a full 30-minute video and a sped-up 3.5-minute version showing the drive. The route was complex: highway merges, a roundabout, right turns on red, and an unprotected left turn, all in normal traffic. 
This stunt arrives just before Tesla’s Q2 delivery numbers and financial results drop. Analysts expect disappointing sales, with stock up briefly after Musk posted the video but slipping again Monday.
Tesla’s no stranger to ambitious self-driving claims. Back in 2016, the company released a controversial video of a car driving itself in the Bay Area. That one needed multiple retakes, safety driver intervention, and was later admitted by a Tesla engineer to be a show of what might be possible, not what was ready.
Ashok Elluswamy stated:
“The intent of the video was not to accurately portray what was available for customers in 2016. It was to portray what was possible to build into the system.”
Elon Musk was closely involved in making that 2016 video.
Questions remain around Tesla’s prep for this new delivery trip. Tesla vehicles with lidar have been spotted mapping Austin, but the company declined to comment on whether that helped prep this route.
Critics want to know if Tesla can repeat this exact drive safely dozens or hundreds of times. Doing it once is notable, but scaling is the big challenge.
The hype still looms large—Musk once promised fully driverless coast-to-coast trips from LA to NYC. This delivery doesn’t get there yet.
Tesla’s harshest FSD critic, Dan O’Dowd, only criticized that the car stopped in a fire lane outside the new owner’s apartment. Compared to his recent live tests throwing child-sized dummies in front of Tesla SUVs, that’s light.
Tesla’s pushed the boundaries again but the bigger questions about reliable, repeatable self-driving still hang in the air.
