An American safety campaign group has broadcast a public safety message during the hugely-watched Super Bowl TV coverage, outlining what it says are the critical safety defects of Tesla Full Self-Driving and the significant threat this software poses to road safety.
The Super Bowl ad – which is reported to cost around $7 million (£5.8 million) is the latest in a multi-million dollar advertising campaign The Dawn Project has conducted since early 2022. The Dawn Project is led by Californian tech entrepreneur Dan O’Dowd who is a critic of Tesla’s technology. The Project itself has a home page with a call for “Making Computers Safe for Humanity” and “We Demand Software that Never Fails and Can’t Be Hacked”.
The Dawn Project’s ad was broadcast during the game to millions of viewers, politicians and regulators in Washington DC, and state capitals including California, New York, Texas, Florida and Georgia.
The ad made a series of claims about how a Tesla in self-driving mode which it says it uncovered the following critical safety defects in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving, including running down a mannequin of a child on a school crossing, ignoring a no entry sign, driving past a stopped school bus with flashing lights (which is illegal in the US) and swerving into on coming traffic.
The Company says the Super Bowl ad will be followed by a series of television and print ads calling for urgent action over the deployment of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software on public roads.
Watch the ad here:
Tesla says that drivers must always be in control when using any of its advanced driver assistance systems.
(Picture – The Dawn Project YouTube video)
