The Dawn Project's Super Bowl advertisement attacking Tesla's (TSLA) Full Self-Driving platform aired during the Fox TV broadcast of the game on Feb. 12.
The Dawn Project advertisement shows video of seven different traffic violations that a Tesla commits, presumably using Full Self-Driving, including some that could have deadly outcomes.
"Tesla Full Self-Driving will run down a child in a school crosswalk, swerve into oncoming traffic, hit a baby in a stroller, go straight past stopped school buses, ignore do not enter signs and even drive on the wrong side of the road," the advertisement says. "Tesla's Full Self-Driving is endangering the public with deceptive marketing and woefully inept engineering."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk indicated a lack of concern about the commercial's assertions in a tweet, also on Feb. 12.
Replying to a tweet from Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@TeslaownersSV) claiming the Dawn Project's testing was fake, Musk simply posted a "rolling on the floor laughing" emoji.
The Dawn Project website claims its testing of Tesla Full Self-Driving revealed the safety issues described in the commercial.
"We have offered to let the national press, regulators, Tesla and Elon Musk himself sit in the Tesla as we test Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software," the website says. "We have challenged Tesla to reveal its testing protocols and results that would contradict our findings, but they have not done so."
"Instead of replicating our tests, Tesla has claimed our findings are faked," it continues. "Nobody has ever carefully replicated our tests and shared their results. If they had done so they would have gotten the same results."
Some Twitter users came to Tesla's defense, such as in this example:
"Actually how can they prove that FSD Beta was enabled?" asked @formytots0128. "This demo could have been using Autopilot mode with limited functionality. Please show us the interior touchscreen display for each test case."
The Dawn Project says its goal is to "stop the use of commercial grade software in safety-critical systems."
