Tesla FSD may be banned
Dan O’Dowd, CEO of Green Hills Software and founder of the Dawn Project, is well-known among Tesla and electric vehicle enthusiasts, although not always for popular reasons. In an exclusive interview with Benzinga, he shared his views on various topics, including his ongoing social media clash with Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and his mission to enhance software safety.
The FSD Problem: Contrary to what one might expect, O’Dowd has been an avid Tesla vehicle driver for the past 13 years. His family also embraces the electric automaker, with two original Roadsters in his possession, a Tesla Model S driven by his wife, and two Model 3s used by the Dawn project for their experiments.
The Dawn Project’s primary objective is to promote safer software across various applications, including electric vehicles. However, within the electric vehicle community, it is most recognized for advocating a ban on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software.
O’Dowd even ran for Senate in 2022, personally spending millions of dollars on a national advertising campaign aimed at what he called Tesla’s “unbelievably bad” self-driving technology.
He didn’t hold back in his criticism of Tesla’s FSD, stating, “In about every 10 miles, it does something dumb. At least every few hours, it will try to kill you.”
As part of their testing, O’Dowd’s team discovered a flaw in Tesla’s driver monitoring system, which is designed to ensure that the driver remains attentive to the road while FSD is active. The system failed to detect various scenarios, such as the driver wearing sunglasses, looking out the window, sleeping, or even being absent from the driver’s seat, O’Dowd said.
Tesla did not respond to Benzinga’s request for comments.
“It couldn’t tell there was nobody. Then we put a teddy bear in there and we put balloons in there, all sorts of different things in the driver’s seat. It never complains, even though it’s supposed to complain unless there’s a person there watching the road,” O’Dowd said.
Tesla did not respond to Benzinga’s request for comments.
“It couldn’t tell there was nobody. Then we put a teddy bear in there and we put balloons in there, all sorts of different things in the driver’s seat. It never complains, even though it’s supposed to complain unless there’s a person there watching the road,” O’Dowd said.
Photo courtesy: Dan O’Dowd
Dawn’s Expanding Radar: To evaluate the performance of Tesla’s FSD against other autonomous driving technologies, O’Dowd’s team conducted tests with General Motors‘ (NYSE:GM) Cruise and Alphabet Inc‘s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Waymo in San Francisco. While Cruise does have occasional errors, it can go up to 30,000 miles without a mistake, whereas a Tesla, in comparison, struggles after just 10 miles, he stated.
To put this to the test, O’Dowd and his team conducted a side-by-side experiment, driving both a Cruise and a Tesla along the same route. While Cruise performed flawlessly, Tesla missed its turn three times and narrowly avoided two accidents, Dawn Project Driver Arthur Maltin said.
O’Dowd pointed out that Tesla’s “problematic software” has tragically resulted in over 20 fatalities, while Waymo and Cruise have maintained a clean safety record. However, O’Dowd acknowledged that even Cruise is not infallible.
Not all experts share O’Dowd’s call for an FSD ban, with some believing that Musk may eventually overcome the technology’s limitations.
“People have to make a choice. He’s (Musk) either lying. Or an idiot. Or he’s going to actually get this thing done,” O’Dowd said, adding that he believes the Tesla CEO is lying.
Musk, in the meantime, has previously pegged autonomy to be the main driver of the company’s market value. And some analysts are indeed hopeful.