The United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has ordered Tesla to recall vehicles equipped with its Full Self-Driving software, days after safety advocacy group The Dawn Project broadcasted a public safety message during Super Bowl LVII across the nation, revealing Tesla Full Self-Driving’s critical safety defects.
The Dawn Project’s ad, which can be viewed here, was broadcasted on Sunday to millions of Americans across the country, including in major states such as California, New York, Texas, Georgia and Florida, questioned why NHTSA allows Tesla to deploy its unsafe Full Self-Driving software on public roads.
Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ordered the recall of over 362,000 Tesla vehicles equipped with its Full Self-Driving software, noting that defects in Tesla’s FSD software would mean that vehicles would “exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash.”
The recall notice continued that: “The [Tesla] FSD Beta system may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections, such as traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution.”
The Super Bowl ad represents the latest action in the multi-million dollar advertising campaign conducted by The Dawn Project over the past year, to raise public and regulatory awareness of the danger of Tesla Full Self-Driving.
The Dawn Project has also today commenced a further television advertising campaign in Washington DC, urging regulators and lawmakers to take action to ban Tesla Full Self-Driving, after safety tests conducted by The Dawn Project revealed that Tesla Full Self-Driving would commit a range of critical driving errors..
In August 2022, Tesla threatened the safety advocacy group with litigation after The Dawn Project alerted the American people that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software would run down a child in the road via a national advertising campaign.
Following NHTSA’s recall, Dan O’Dowd, Founder of The Dawn Project, commented:
“The Dawn Project is pleased that NHTSA has finally taken action over Tesla Full Self-Driving’s critical safety defects.
“The Dawn Project’s Super Bowl ad revealed the critical safety defects in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software to millions of Americans. We called on regulators to intervene to urgently recall Tesla’s dangerous and defective Full Self-Driving software.
“NHTSA’s actions represent an important first step in ensuring our roads are kept safe from Tesla Full Self-Driving. NHTSA must now act swiftly to force Tesla to prove it has fixed the critical safety defects we identified in its Full Self-Driving software before it is permitted on our roads.
“Tesla Full Self-Driving is unsafe for public roads, and Elon Musk’s decision to use the American public as crash test dummies has exposed millions of drivers, pedestrians and cyclists to potentially fatal danger.
“Despite our repeated warnings that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software will run down a child in the road, Elon Musk released this blatantly unsafe software to ‘anyone in North America’ on Thanksgiving day.
“Tesla Full Self-Driving is the worst commercial software I have ever seen, and the public must be kept safe from Elon Musk’s contempt for safety regulations.
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