The first fully autonomous delivery of a Tesla Model Y from factory to a customer home across town, including highways, was just completed a day ahead of schedule!!
Musk has been known to stretch the meaning of the words “fully autonomous” over the years, but he did give a few more details:
There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous! 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.
However, Musk’s last comment is not valid. Several companies have tested fully autonomous driving with no one in the driver’s seat or in the car, and Waymo has even started offering rides to paying passengers on freeways.
Actually, while Musk often stretches the truth, I think he’s right in this case:
If you have a citation for:
• Fully autonomous drive - that means no human driver for the whole length of the drive. Starting or ending with a human invalidates.
• No people in the car at all - not just not in the driver’s seat
• No remote operators in control - Monitoring remotely is OK, but no instruction/inputs being provided to the vehicle.
• On a public highway - not test track, etc.
I’d like to see it.
And calling it a “lie” is itself hyperbolic, as the statement clearly says “to the best of our knowledge.”
As to your counter, Waymo “offering rides to paying passengers on freeways” is different than “no people in the car.” Unless you have something indicating the return trip without passengers also goes on the freeway, which could be possible and maybe even has happened. I spent just a few minutes and could only find that testing on freeways is happening in Phoenix and maybe SF, but nothing to indicate freeway driving with no-one in the car at any time during the drive (which I define as stationary at Point A to stationary at Point B)
Why is this significant? How is not having a passenger a significant qualification? Certainly the person in the back seat is unable to intervene in any meaningful way.
If we are going by months, then we’re now in the second half of the year. If we’re going by days, then Tesla still has two more days to introduce new models.