Electric carmaker Tesla faces a hit on Super Bowl Sunday, when an ad will show the alleged dangers of its “Full Self-Driving” technology.
The commercialwhich is being aired in Washington, DC, Austin, Tallahassee, Albany, Atlanta and Sacramento does not paint Tesla in the best light.
The ad is part of a multimillion dollar advertising campaign by The Dawn Project. Its founder, Dan O’Dowd, is a California tech CEO who has dedicated millions of his own money (and a failed US Senate race) to the cause.
The ad cost $598,000, a Dawn Project spokesperson told CNN.
It shows a Tesla Model 3, which allegedly has the Full Self-Driving mode turned on, running over a child-sized dummy on a school crosswalk, and then a fake baby in a stroller, in a series of tests by the Dawn Project. In the spot, the car swerves into oncoming traffic, zooms past stopped school buses and cruises through “do not enter” signs.
“Tesla’s Full Self-Driving is endangering the public,” the ad said. “With deceptive marketing and woefully inept engineering.”
The Dawn Project says it wants to make computer-controlled systems safer for humanity, shooting its own videos as tests of Tesla’s alleged design flaws.
More background: In August, O’Dowd published a video showing a Tesla plowing into child-sized mannequins. Some Tesla fans posted their own videos in defense, using their own dummies or even their own children — YouTube has taken down several test videos involving actual children, citing safety risks.
O’Dowd received a cease and desist letter from Tesla over the video, claiming he and the Dawn Project were “disparaging Tesla’s commercial interests and disseminating defamatory information to the public.”
O’Dowd responded to the cease-and-desist with a 1,736-word post in which he pushed back, defended his tests and returned barbs from Musk and some Tesla supporters.
Though officially in beta mode, Full Self-Driving is available to any user in North America who wants to purchase the $15,000 feature.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system is intended to someday work on city streets, but despite its wide rollout, is still officially in a developmental “beta” program. No car for sale on the market is yet able to drive itself.
Tesla did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
