Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that by the end of 2025, newly purchased Tesla vehicles will be capable of autonomously delivering themselves to their owners’ residences. This promise comes on the heels of recent advancements in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, particularly with the release of FSD version 13, which Musk claims outperforms the average human driver.
The announcement was made in response to a Tesla video showcasing vehicles autonomously navigating a 1.4-mile (approximately 1.5-kilometer) route from the production line to the outbound logistics lot at Giga Texas, a feat that has accrued over 50,000 driverless miles across Tesla’s California and Texas factories.
The video shared by Tesla’s AI account on X highlights a significant milestone: Model Ys and Cybertrucks autonomously traversing a complex route shared with pedestrians, cars, trucks, and construction equipment.
Giga Texas production now uses FSD Unsupervised to deliver cars from end of line to the outbound logistics lot.
— Tesla AI (@Tesla_AI) April 13, 2025
Over 50,000 driverless miles have been accrued between California and Texas factories so far pic.twitter.com/79zKY0U6Ox
For most vehicles, this involves a 1.4-mile journey, while Cybertrucks navigate a shorter 0.6-mile path through the “Cybertunnel” beneath a highway, emerging via a steep 17% grade to reach the loading docks. Musk described this as a step toward “large-scale unsupervised FSD,” emphasizing that these vehicles operate without human intervention in controlled factory environments.
This demonstration builds on Tesla’s ongoing efforts to refine its FSD technology. According to Musk, FSD version 13 has achieved a critical milestone, with crowdsourced data showing approximately 493 miles between critical disengagements—a 2.7x improvement over version 12.5.
Tesla’s head of FSD, Ashok Elluswamy, has stated that for unsupervised autonomy, the system must reach an average of 670,000 miles between critical interventions, equivalent to human collision rates as per NHTSA standards. While the current performance is a significant leap, it remains far from the target, raising questions about the feasibility of Musk’s latest promise.
Musk’s claim that Teslas will self-deliver to customers by year-end has generated buzz, with X posts reflecting enthusiasm among Tesla supporters. Users like @BastianBraun121 and @techAU celebrated the announcement as a glimpse into a future where vehicles drive themselves from factory to doorstep.
However, Musk’s history of optimistic timelines tempers this excitement. Since 2016, he has repeatedly promised full autonomy “by the end of the year,” only for those deadlines to pass without delivery. For instance, a 2016 claim of a driverless cross-country trip by 2017 never materialized, and subsequent promises of unsupervised FSD and a million robotaxis by 2020 also fell short.
Critics argue that the self-delivery promise is an extension of Musk’s pattern of “moving the goalposts.” Electrek reports suggest Tesla is pivoting from its long-standing commitment to enabling unsupervised FSD in all customer vehicles since 2016 to a geo-fenced, teleoperation-assisted ride-hailing service in Austin by June 2025.
This service, likened to Waymo’s existing model, may rely on human teleoperators to supervise vehicles, undermining the “unsupervised” label Musk has championed. The factory-to-loading-dock demonstration, while impressive, operates on private roads at low speeds, a far cry from the complexities of public roads where self-delivery would occur.
Achieving self-delivery on public roads presents significant challenges. Tesla’s FSD, currently a Level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), requires constant human supervision. Transitioning to Level 4 or 5 autonomy, where no human intervention is needed, demands not only technical breakthroughs but also regulatory approval.
Autonomous vehicle deployment is permitted in 21 U.S. states, but regulations vary widely, and Europe and China impose stricter standards. In California, where Tesla plans to launch unsupervised FSD alongside Texas, multiple tiers of permits are required for testing and deployment.
Also Read: Tesla Has Started Rolling Out V13 Full Self Driving (Supervised) To Limited Non Tesla Employees.
Moreover, Tesla faces hardware constraints. Musk recently admitted that the HW3 computers in older vehicles may not support unsupervised FSD, necessitating costly upgrades to HW4 for affected owners. This admission contradicts years of claims that all Tesla vehicles since 2016 were future-proof for full autonomy, potentially eroding trust among customers who paid up to $15,000 for the FSD package.
Despite these challenges, Tesla’s progress cannot be dismissed. The factory demonstration and FSD version 13’s improvements signal that the company is advancing its AI-driven autonomy. Musk’s vision of a self-delivering Tesla aligns with his broader goal of a robotaxi network, where customer-owned vehicles could join a ride-hailing fleet by 2026. However, experts like Sam Abuelsamid of Telemetry remain skeptical, noting that FSD’s unpredictable failures make an unsupervised launch by June 2025 unlikely.
For now, the self-delivery promise is a tantalizing prospect that hinges on Tesla overcoming significant technical, regulatory, and legal barriers. While Musk’s supporters view it as a transformative leap, critics see it as another ambitious claim in a decade-long saga of unfulfilled promises. As 2025 unfolds, the world will watch to see if Tesla can deliver—quite literally—on its vision of autonomy.