The World’s First Autonomous Delivery of a Car

They said it couldn’t be done…

They said it would be delayed, certain it would never happen, and yet again, they were proven wrong.

Flying in the face of all their critics, the team at Tesla successfully delivered one of its electric vehicles (EVs) to a new customer, direct to their residence, without any human intervention.

To be more accurate, the EV left the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas, by itself and drove itself to its new owner.

Fully autonomous delivery.  The first in history.

Source:  X @elonmusk

What a fantastic way for Tesla to cap the end of last week and its Robotaxi launch, which was full of nonsense from the media.

Fully Autonomous Delivery

For any subscribers who missed the autonomous excitement of last week, I recommend a quick read of The Bleeding Edge – A Future With No Drivers and The Bleeding Edge – Was Tesla’s Robotaxi Launch a Flop?

Tesla put it all to rest with a stunning 30-minute drive from Tesla’s Austin Gigafactory to the residence of the new Tesla customer. Tesla recorded the entire drive.

For any disbelievers or anyone curious, you can see the entire autonomous delivery right here.

Source:  Tesla

We can see in the image above that in the lower right corner, the video from the interior camera is shown, and there is no one in the car at all.

The Tesla Model Y left the factory, drove on highways, surface streets, through a range of busy traffic conditions, and ultimately navigated to its residential destination where its new owner was waiting outside.

The implications of this are pretty incredible.

I purchased my Tesla almost two years ago through the Tesla software application on my smartphone. Tesla’s software, using AI, checked my credit score in seconds and approved me on the spot. The whole process took me all of about two minutes. It was easy, straightforward, and completely pain-free.

Picking up my car was a different story. When my Tesla was ready for me, I had to take an Uber to a Tesla showroom about 45 minutes away from my home.  It was inconvenient, and I could have done without the hassle at the time.

This is the solution.

Imagine getting a message on your smartphone indicating that your Tesla has arrived at a local delivery depot and is ready for pickup or autonomous delivery.

New owners will then be able to choose to pick it up in person, or, if they prefer an autonomous delivery, they can select the exact delivery time that is most convenient for them.

Tap a button, select your day and time of autonomous delivery, and you’re done.

That’s the very near future.

But there’s one nuance to consider…

Tesla only has two manufacturing plants in the U.S. for its EVs:

• Fremont, California: Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y
• Austin, Texas: Model Y and Cybertruck

So, if you don’t live within a couple hundred miles of one of these manufacturing locations, will autonomous delivery still be possible?

Absolutely.

More Than a Delivery Service

Tesla will continue to distribute its EVs to delivery depot locations around the country.  In time, once fully autonomous regulatory approval has been received for nationwide unsupervised autonomous driving, this will happen with Tesla Semis.

Source:  Tesla

Why not just have every Tesla drive to its final destination right off the factory floor?  Well, if its customer lives 1,500 miles away from a factory, then by the time the Tesla made it to its new owner, it wouldn’t be a new car anymore.

And consumers who buy or lease a new car want to receive a new car.  Which means that the autonomous deliveries will almost always happen within 100 miles or so of a customer’s residence.

But the implications are far greater than just for a Robotaxi network or autonomous deliveries.  Just think about how this technology could be used:

• If your Tesla needs a repair, you’ll be able to schedule that repair from your Tesla app. With the press of a button, your Tesla will autonomously drive itself to the Tesla repair facility. You’ll no longer need to take an Uber back home or get a friend or spouse to drive you to the repair shop to pick up your car.
• When the repair is done, you’ll get a notification, choose your time of delivery, and your Tesla will show up at your doorstep at the time of your choosing.
• In the future, you’ll be able to schedule pickups for family and friends. Let’s say that you need your teenager to be picked up from school and taken home due to your work schedule.  Just schedule it.  Your teenager will be an authorized passenger in the Tesla app, and they’ll have their phones with them to grant them access to the car.
• Or how about a personal delivery? Let’s say that you want to return a pressure cooker and some pans from a summer picnic with friends.  Just load them in the back of the car and send the car to your friend’s house.  When it arrives, unlock the car in your Tesla app – you’ll be able to see the exterior/interior of the car using the Tesla’s cameras – and when they’ve unloaded everything, just press a button and your Tesla will return home.

This is about so much more.

An OS for the Auto Industry

If given room to run, Tesla’s autonomous software and artificial intelligence will remove nearly all friction involved with purchasing, insuring, and servicing a car.  And by eliminating the need to pander to a traditional dealer network, they can keep costs down for both selling and maintaining their customers’ EVs.

The traditional automotive companies are in so much trouble.  They’re in a state of denial.  But at some point, they’ll all realize that they need an autonomous strategy.  At which point, there are really only two players to turn to right now…

Google’s (GOOG) Waymo or Tesla (TSLA).

Musk has said clearly that he is willing to consider licensing Tesla’s autonomous software to other car companies.

For smartphones, the battle to control the operating system was between Google and Apple.  Google won by a landslide. The vast majority of smartphones globally run on Google’s Android OS.

For cars, the battle will be between Google and Tesla this time.

While it’s not discussed out in the open, it’s entirely possible that Tesla’s full self-driving software could become the standard operating system for the majority of U.S. passenger and delivery vehicles in the future.

The world has been surprisingly fine with Google’s dominance, courtesy of its Android OS, willingly overlooking its data surveillance and collection from consumers’ phones all over the world.

Yet people have been up in arms over Tesla. Why? The only data that Tesla is interested in harvesting is real-world video from autonomous driving in order to further improve its artificial intelligence.

Jeff