Vocal Voices

Californian Senator candidate Dan O Dowd and his Dawn Project ran a campaign based on how dangerous Tesla self driving software is and why it should be banned until it is "better".

I note he failed to win at his primary and is now out of the race.

However. In this article, they explain why his video showing how "dangerous" full self driving really is proves that they have not ever tested it.

I mean, have a look, scroll down, look at the evidence. It was never engaged.

When I say Stupid is as Stupid does I don't mean the campaign or the testing. I mean actually releasing a video that proves they are so incompetent that they never even realised that all their testing proved was that if a human lets go of control of the vehicle at 40mph, 100yds before a child on the road, the child will be run over. Because the Human is still in control but has chosen not to control the video.

Surely someone actually tested the vehicle to see what FSD looked like when it was engaged and driving??? Wouldn't you?

America seems to be getting to be a nastier place to live.
Musk has obviously upset people and he's not everyone's cup of tea, but going out of your way to tell flat out lies about him is out of order.
There doesn't seem to be much live and let live there anymore, and we're getting like that too.

He's getting similar to Trump.

There has been a fairly large reaction from the community. After all 100k people are currently testing this in their own cars. Further analysis shows that one of the parking sensors has some masking on it, reason unknow.

My own analysis of the pictures are that the driver attempted to engage FSD at 24mph, not the claimed 40mph. Also they have a pdf on the website with a picture of FSD actually engaged. You can see the blue driving wheel and the blue prediction path. You can also see that it is enabled at 10mph. Also, if you really zoom it in, you can see that the prediction path seems to show it avoiding the "child".

Another politician has jumped on the bandwagon and demanded the NHTSA ban this "murdering software".

It's one thing lying to the public for a political cause. Or for a business cause as Microsoft did over Internet Explorer. They created a totally false video showing how you could remove IE and use another browser. Caught out by a small graphic in the corner of the screen nobody at Microsoft noticed. So long as it is at least a competent try.

This one is dramatically different. It appears to be half hearted at best. To be honest I would think Tesla can litigate on this one.

As people who use FSD beta are picking this campaign apart, it appears that nothing about it is real. Although the Guardian ran it without fact checking it. There is no single end to end video, the video with the car hitting the "child" shows FSD being activated about half way in the cones, but the in cockpit video shows it being activated (attempted), at the start of the cones. The "report" claims FSD was activated at 40mph but the video shows it failing to activate at 24mph. The PDF report has a single screenshot in it with FSD beta active at 10mph.

I cannot se how Tesla cannot litigate in this case. It is a pure fabrication. About as bad as Nikola trucks creating their advertising video with a truck rolling down a hill with no motor and presenting it as a "ready to go" solution. They're in court over that one.