Tesla says it made its first driverless delivery of a new car to a customer

Tesla says it notched a historic first, making a driverless dery of a new car to a customer on Friday in Austin, Texas

Tesla car sales are under pressure from Chinese EV brands, and a consumer backlash against the company in response to CEO Elon Musk, his and work with the Trump administration

A Tesla logo outside the company's Tilburg Factory and Dery Center

Karol Serewis | Getty ImagesTesla CEO Elon Musk said the automaker its first driverless dery of a new car to a customer, routing a Model Y SUV from the company's Austin, Texas, Gigafactory to an apartment building in the area on June 27

The Tesla account on social network X, which is also owned by Musk, d a overnight showing the Model Y traversing public roads in Austin, including highways, with no human in the driver's seat or front passenger seat of the car

Tesla did not say which version of its software and hardware had been installed and used in the car shown in the clip — or if and when that nology would be commercially available to its customers

A Model Y owners' manual, available on the Tesla website, says that in order to use Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) option — which is the company's most advanced, partially automated driving system available today — owners must keep their hands on the wheel, and remain ready to take over steering or braking at any time

The vehicle in Tesla's was shown operating without a driver on the highway, passing through residential streets and around parking lots before arriving and stopping for a handoff to a customer

The buyer was waiting by the curb at an apartment building alongside Tesla employees, some sporting logo-emblazoned shirts. (The curb was painted red, indicating it is a no-stop fire lane. )In 2016, Tesla d an Autopilot — known as the "Paint It Black" — that had been staged in a manner which exaggerated its cars self-driving capabilities, depositions later revealed

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating Tesla over possible safety defects in their FSD systems, and recently sought more information from the company its robotaxi debut after its cars were seen violating some traffic rules

In posts on X on Friday, Musk wrote: "The first fully autonomous dery of a Tesla Model Y from factory to a customer across town, including highways, was just a day ahead of schedule

Congratulations to the @Tesla_AI teams, both software & AI chip design. "He also wrote, "There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point

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. "Musk's claim the "first fully autonomous drive" on a public highway was not accurate

Alphabet-owned Waymo, which is already operating commercial robotaxi services across multiple U

Head of AI at Tesla, Ashok Elluswamy, said in posts on X that the automaker "literally chose a random customer who ordered a Model Y in the Austin area" to participate

He also said the vehicle dered is "exactly the same as every Model Y duced in the Tesla factory. "Elluswamy also noted in a post on X that the Model Y in the driverless dery traveled at a "max speed of 72 mph. " Most highways in Texas have a maximum speed limit of 70 miles per hour, according to the Texas Department of Transportation website

Here's what we sawAutosSeparately, Tesla began a robotaxi pilot gram in Austin last weekend involving 10 to 20 of its Model Y SUVs equipped with nology, which Tesla has revealed little to the public

The Tesla robotaxi service is available only to select, invited riders who have mostly been influencers and analysts, many of whom generate income by posting Tesla-fan content on platforms X and YouTube

The Tesla robotaxi vehicles run with a human safety supervisor on board in the front passenger seat, and are remotely supervised by employees in an operations center

In his Master Plan, Part Deux, he outlined a future where every Tesla owner would be able to add their car to a "Tesla d fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app," enabling their car to generate income for them while they sleep

In 2019, Musk said Tesla would have 1 million robotaxis on the road by 2020 — a claim that helped him raise $2 billion at the time from institutional investors

While Tesla has not fulfilled those mises thus far, the driverless dery in Texas this week has elicited excitement among believers in Musk and his vision

Meanwhile, Tesla is battling a brand backlash in response to the CEO's often incendiary political rhetoric, his endorsements of Germany's far-right extremist party AfD, and his work for the Trump administration

The company is also facing increased competition from EV makers, particularly Chinese brands such as BYD, Nio and Xiaomi, offering more affordable and newer models

Tesla is expected to disclose its second-quarter vehicle duction and dery numbers on July 2.