San Francisco, Dec 21 (IANS): A woman in the US gave birth to what is believed to be the world's first Tesla baby -- an infant delivered in the front seat of Elon Musk-owned electric car Tesla while it was driving on autopilot more, media reports said.

The remarkable delivery took place in September while Yiran Sherry, 33, and her husband Keating Sherry, 34, were taking their three-year-old son Rafa to pre-school in Philadelphia, citing the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Guardian reported.

Yiran Sherry's waters broke while the family was stuck in traffic. With contractions increasing rapidly and traffic barely moving, the couple realised they were not going to make it in time.

Her husband placed the vehicle on autopilot mode after setting the navigation system to the hospital, 20 minutes away in the western suburb of Paoli, the report said.

He said he laid one hand gently on the car's steering wheel as he attended to his wife, it added.

"She was squeezing my hand to the point where I thought she was going to shatter it," Keating Sherry was quoted as saying.

"I was [saying] 'Yiran, OK, focus on your breathing'. That was advice to myself, as well. My adrenaline was pumping," he added.

The mother of the infant said the decision over whether to try to wait to give birth until they reached the hospital was an agonising one. However, she said, she kept glancing at their estimated arrival time and saw it was barely moving.

She gave birth to her daughter as they arrived at the hospital.

The baby's delivery is a good news story for Tesla, which has been plagued by bad publicity over safety concerns and workplace abuse, the report said.