- Model Y drives autonomously from factory gates to owner's house.
- Nobody on board, no remote control says Elon Musk.
- Steered by Tesla's camera-based 'robotaxi' technology.
A Tesla Model Y has driven autonomously from the maker's Austin, Texas "Gigafactory" on public roads to its new owner's residence, leading Elon Musk to claim a company first... "to the best of our knowledge".
The full in-car video has been uploaded to YouTube (watch it above). The journey takes about 30 minutes and seems to go without a hitch, despite some reasonably complex traffic and turn situations; rest assured if there had been one, we wouldn't be seeing this film.
The car did not have any passengers on board (there was a rear-facing camera to prove it, see video inset) and Musk assured via X that there were "no remote operators in control at any point."
A couple of things to note. While this was indeed a customer car, it was equipped with Tesla's "robotaxi" software to make the delivery journey.
Once it reached its new owner, it was returned to Full Self Driving (Supervised) status, as fitted to production Model Ys. Both systems are camera-based.
Tesla started a small robotaxi trial in Austin late last month - not without incident, Austin's AV database recording more than 15 safety-related errors in the the first week.
There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 27, 2025
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.