JenThorpe This might be a bigger deal than the robotaxis, The Verge reported. Tesla said it completed its first autonomous vehicle delivery from factory to consumer. A video posted on X shows the vehicle — a Tesla Model Y — leaving the company’s Austin Gigafactory, driving on the highway, passing through suburban sprawl and residential neighborhoods, before arriving at a customer’s apartment building. Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk had promised the first fully autonomous delivery would take place on June 28th. But on Friday, he announced that the milestone had ben achieved a day early. “There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous! Musk wrote on X. “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.” That last part isn’t accurate. Waymo has been operating fully driverless vehicles with passengers on the highway for over a year. The vehicles, which are driving on freeways in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, are only available to employees of the company, with the goal of opening them up to the public at a later date. Engadget reported: Tesla’s robotaxi service may have some early hitches, but the company said it just successfully delivered a car autonomously. Using the same robotaxi technology, Tesla showed the delivery process of a Model Y from its Gigafactory Texas in Austin to a customer with a roughly 30-minute journey as seen in the video posted on X. Unlike the robotaxi service launch last week, the automated delivery had not safety monitor, nor anyone behind the wheel. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, also posted on X that the delivery didn’t have any “remote operators in control at any point.” The trip covers navigating through everything from the Gigafactory Texas’ parking lot to the city streets, even managing to handle the highway without any incidents. This delivery comes just after Tesla’s rollout of its robotaxi service in Austin, with Musk promising that the “first Tesla that drives itself from factory end of line all the way to a customers house is June 28.” While impressive, its not the first time that a fully autonomous car has used the highway, since Waymo started allowing employees access to self-driving rides on Los Angeles freeways earlier this year. PCMag reported: Amid a controversial and error-prone robotaxi rollout in Austin this week, Tesla claims it has completed its first “fully autonomous delivery” of a vehicle all the way from the factory to the customer’s home. According to Tesla’s official X account, the new Model Y travel for roughly 30 minutes from the company’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, across “parking lots, highways, and the city to reach its new owner.” Tesla engineer Ashok Elluswamy said in a separate post that the vehicle achieved a brisk 72 miles per hour on the highway. But several EV-focused publications, such as Electrk, have disputed Musk’s claim that this is the first fully autonomous journey to take place on a public highway. Post navigation