The Dawn Project, a safety advocacy group, is campaigning to ban Tesla’s fully self-driving (FSD) system from the Super Bowl.
The 30-second ad is being broadcast to millions of football fans in Washington, D.C. and state capitals such as Austin, Tallahassee, Albany, Atlanta and Sacramento, and is powered by automakers’ advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). It outlines some alleged serious safety flaws in one Tesla FSD. .
FSD isn’t really fully self-driving, but it can perform some self-driving tasks, like navigating cities and highways without driver input. However, the $15,000 system is far from perfect, and drivers need constant attention to take over in case the system malfunctions or encounters a problem it can’t handle. There have been several reports of accidents occurring while Tesla’s lower-level ADAS, Autopilot, was active. As a result, Tesla has been criticized, investigated, and sued for misrepresenting the capabilities of its self-driving system.
This latest criticism stems from Tesla’s recent release of the latest version of its FSD to nearly 400,000 drivers in North America, renewed concerns about the system’s safety. Last month, a Tesla engineer testified that his 2016 demo, in which the company claimed its cars were self-driving, did.
The Super Bowl ad stated that the FSD was “run over by a child at a school crosswalk, swerved into oncoming traffic, hit a baby in a stroller, drove past a stopped school bus, and ignored a ‘no entry’ sign.” and even drive on the other side of the road. “
The Dawn Project alleges Tesla’s “deceptive marketing” and “grossly incompetent engineering” are endangering the public, urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Automobile Administration to fix all safety deficiencies. It asks to turn off FSD until
Dan O’Dowd, founder of The Dawn Project, is also CEO of Green Hill Software. The company builds operating systems for built-in safety and security systems, as well as its own self-driving system. This fact immediately lends credence to the organization’s potential subject matter expertise and makes it clear that Green Hill is competing with his FSD at Tesla. Last year, The Dawn Project ran a full-page ad in the New York Times claiming that his FSD in Tesla had a “serious breakdown every eight minutes.”
O’Dowd, who ran for U.S. Senate last November but lost, says he’s investing in a new advertising campaign because he wants to pressure politicians to make ADAS safety a priority. Some politicians, such as Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Connecticut) and Edward J. Markey (D., Massachusetts), have called for increased scrutiny of Tesla’s technology, but the issue is not necessarily It has not become mainstream.
After The Dawn Project aired a commercial last summer in which a Tesla Model 3 crashed into four child-sized mannequins while driving on a California test track, Tesla sent a cease and desist letter to the organization. . The letter refuted all of the campaign’s allegations, highlighted Tesla’s commitment to safety, and questioned Dawn’s project methodology.
Dina Eskin, an attorney for Tesla, said in last year’s suspension and retraction that “the purported tests exploited and misrepresented the capabilities of Tesla’s technology and were widely acknowledged to have been conducted by an independent agency. It ignores testing and the experiences shared by its customers: “In fact, I’ve done my own scrutiny of the methodology behind The Dawn Project’s testing, and it’s already (and since you publicly made your defamatory allegations) within hours) showed that the test was highly deceptive and likely fraudulent.”
Tesla supporters also rushed to defend the technology, including one investor who used his own child to test the FSD beta. O’Dowd offered to run tests directly with Musk and other critics to prove the accuracy and methodology of his tests.
“Tesla continues to focus on features and marketing gimmicks rather than fixing critical safety flaws,” O’Dowd said in a statement. Smart Summon, Autopark, Optimus, has not confirmed that the FSD does not corner children. It’s clear that Tesla’s priorities are wrong and it’s time for regulators to step in and turn off the software until all the issues we’ve identified are fixed. “
Tesla has not publicly responded to its Super Bowl ad, but CEO Elon Musk answered To Tweets displaying ads containing the Rolling on the Floor laugh emoji. TechCrunch was not reached for comment because Tesla disbanded its PR department in 2020.
In addition to the Super Bowl ad, The Dawn Project has run a series of full-page ads on Politico and additional TV ads in Washington, DC, where the “regulators are located.” These ads call for disabling FSD until it becomes critical. A safety flaw has been fixed.
