There’s gonna be a Tesla ad full of lies at the Super Bowl but it isn’t Elon’s
There’s gonna be a Tesla ad full of lies that will play the Superbowl today, but it isn’t coming from Tesla.
After years of resisting, Tesla has started to advertise over the last year.
Recently, the automaker has ramped up its advertising effort with more ads on X and even video ads on Youtube.
It doesn’t look like Tesla is quite ready to jump into the holy grail of advertising, Super Bowl ads, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t be featured in one.
“The Dawn Project” released that it is going to play not one but two ads about Tesla during the Super Bowl LVIII:
Dan O’Dowd, a self-described billionaire and founder of Green Hills Software, a privately-owned company that makes operating systems and programming tools, is behind The Dawn Project.
In 2022, O’Dowd had launched a senate campaign in his home state of California, but the tech executive made it quite clear that he is making it a single-issue campaign, and that issue is Tesla’s Full Self-Driving program.
Under the protection of political ads, he invested several million dollars in an ad campaign to attack Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta program, with the goal of having it banned from public roads in the US.
Even though O’Dowd lost his senate effort, the campaign continued under the name “The Dawn Project” and continued to attack Tesla frequently with ads and social media posts.
Tesla ended up sending a cease-and-desist letter to the Dawn Project over the campaign, but it didn’t deter the group, which actually launched an anti-Tesla ad at the Super Bowl last year.
Now, they are back at it.
Electrek’s Take
Now, if you have been following my Tesla FSD Beta coverage on Electrek, you know I’m not the program’s biggest fan. I love what Tesla is trying to achieve, but I dislike that it decided to sell the feature before it is actually completed.
The delays have also increasingly made the path to achieving self-driving murkier. In my own experience, FSD Beta can be dangerous to use if you are not approaching it as intended, which is by keeping your hands on the steering wheel and being ready to take control at all times.
But despite all those issues, I think the Dawn Project’s fearmongering approach is bad.
It’s even potentially libelous. I don’t know how they can say that it “claimed 33 lives”. I assume that they are talking about fatal accidents in which one or more Autopilot of FSD beta features were activated, but that doesn’t mean those features were the cause of the accidents.
In almost all cases we have seen, it was eventually revealed through data that the driver was not paying attention. The way that The Dawn Project frames the Tesla crashes, it would be the equivalent to saying that all crashes where cruise control would be active, the cruise control would be responsible. It doesn’t make sense.
Now, that leads to one area of criticism that I think is fair, which is that Tesla’s driver monitoring is lacking compared to the competition. Efficient driver monitoring can help ensure that drivers are paying attention.
That’s probably a point that I agree with The Dawn Project about, but I don’t know that it justifies demonizing FSD Beta in a Super Bowl ad.
It’s also important to note that O’Dowd’s intention are not necessarily purely altruistic – trying to stop Tesla from killing children. It just so happens that his company, Green Hills Software, makes automotive software for driver assist. You could say that it is a competitor to Tesla Autopilot. Coincidence?
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Environment
Uber launches true driverless robotaxi operations in the Middle East with WeRide [Video]
![Uber launches true driverless robotaxi operations in the Middle East with WeRide [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/11/Uber-Middle-East-WeRide.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Just over a year after Uber announced a strategic partnership in the Middle East with autonomous vehicle specialist WeRide, the companies have officially begun offering the public robotaxi rides without a driver or safety operator present on board.
Today’s latest milestone involving robotaxi operations in the Middle East dates back to September 2024, when Uber and WeRide initially announced a strategic partnership to bring autonomous rides to the UAE.
Three months later, the partner officially launched autonomous rides in Abu Dhabi, but with a safety operator present in the vehicle. At the time, Uber and WeRide said the supervised rides were “laying the groundwork” for a true driverless commercial operations planned for 2025.
That day has come.
WeRide and Uber have confirmed that commercial robotaxi operations are officially underway in Abu Dhabi without any safety operators on board – a first for the Middle East.
Uber rolls out Middle East robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi
Uber shared details of its latest milestone late this evening or in the afternoon in the Middle East, depending on where you are.
Beginning today (Wednesday) customers in Abu Dhabi can select an UberX or Uber Comfort ride that enables them to be matched with a fully autonomous WeRide robotaxi without a driver inside. Riders in the Middle East can also increase their chances of hailing one of these driverless rides by select the “Autonomous” option in the Uber app.
In order to qualify, the prosepctive rider’s route must be part of WeRide’s operating territory in Abu Dhabi and a dedicated WeRide GXR Robotaxi vehicle (seen in the featured image above) must be available.
Similar to Uber’s partnership with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta, the global rideshare network will oversee fleet operations for WeRide vehicles, handling end-to end rider support. It has tapped Tawasul Transport to facilitate vehicle cleaning, maintenance, inspections, charging, and depot management. WeRide will remain responsible for vehicle testing.
As you may recall last spring, Uber and WeRide announced an expansion to their strategic partnership beyond the Middle East (although Dubai will be the city for its next robotaxi rollout). Over the next five years, Uber and WeRide intend to deploy true driverless public rides in 15 additional cities, some of which will be in Europe.
As promised, here’s some b-roll footage from Uber showing how riders in Abu Dhabi can order a WeRide robotaxi:
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Metro Detroit is about to get a big boost of fast EV chargers, with more than 40 new ChargePoint ports set to come online across multiple sites owned by the Dabaja Brothers Development Group.
The first ultra-fast charging site just opened in Canton, Michigan. It’s owned and operated by Dabaja Brothers, who plan to follow it with additional ChargePoint-equipped locations in Dearborn and Livonia.
“We started this project because we saw a gap in our community – there was almost nowhere to charge an EV in Canton, and a similar lack of charging across metro Detroit,” said Yousef Dabaja, owner/operator at Dabaja Brothers.
Each metro Detroit site will feature ChargePoint Express Plus fast charging stations, which can deliver up to 500 kW to a single port, can fast-charge two vehicles at the same time, and are compatible with all EVs. The stations feature a proprietary cooling system to deliver peak charging speeds for sustained periods, ensuring that charging speed remains consistent.
The stations operate on the new ChargePoint Platform, which enables operators to monitor performance, adjust pricing, troubleshoot issues, and gain real-time insights to keep chargers running smoothly.
Rick Wilmer, CEO at ChargePoint, said, “This initiative will rapidly infill the ‘fast charging deserts’ across the Detroit area, allowing drivers to quickly recharge their vehicles when and where they need to.”
Read more: ChargePoint just gave its EV charging software a major AI upgrade
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Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging and Starbucks have officially opened their first DC fast charging hub together, off the I-5 in Red Bluff, California.
The 400 kW Mercedes-Benz chargers are capable of adding up to 300 miles in 10 minutes, depending on the EV, and every stall has both NACS and CCS cables – they’re fully open DC fast chargers.
Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, a joint venture between subsidiaries of Mercedes-Benz Group and renewable energy producer MN8 Energy, first announced in July 2024 that it would install DC fast chargers at Starbucks stores along Interstate 5, the main 1,400-mile north-south interstate highway on the US West Coast from Canada to Mexico. Ultimately, Mercedes plans to install fast chargers at 100 Starbucks stores across the US.
Mercedes-Benz HPC opened its first North American charging site at Mercedes-Benz USA’s headquarters in Sandy Springs, Georgia, in November 2023 as part of an initial $1 billion charging network investment. As of the end of 2024, Mercedes had deployed over 150 operational fast chargers in the US, but it hasn’t disclosed an official number of how many chargers are currently online.
Andrew Cornelia, CEO of Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, is leaving the company at the end of the month to become global head of electrification & sustainability at Uber.
Read more: Mercedes-Benz is deploying 400 kW US-made EV fast chargers with CCS and NACS cables
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