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?
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
China just laid out a plan to roll out over 100,000 ultra-fast EV charging stations by 2027 – and they’ll all be open to the public.
The National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) joint notice, issued on Monday, asks local authorities to put together construction plans for highway service areas and prioritize the ones that see 40% or more usage during holiday travel rushes.
The NDRC notes that China’s ultra-fast EV charging infrastructure needs upgrading as more 800V EVs hit the road. Those high-voltage platforms can handle super-fast charging in as little as 10 to 30 minutes, but only if the charging hardware is up to speed.
China had 31.4 million EVs on the road at the end of 2024 – nearly 9% of the country’s total vehicle fleet. But charging access is still catching up. As of May 2025, there were 14.4 million charging points, or roughly 1 for every 2.2 EVs.
To keep the grid running smoothly, China wants new chargers to be smart, with dynamic pricing to incentivize off-peak charging and solar and storage to power the charging stations.
To make the business side work, the government is pushing for 10-year leases for charging station operators, and it’s backing the buildout with local government bonds.
The NDRC emphasized that the DC fast chargers built will be open to the public. This is a big deal because a lot of fast chargers in China aren’t. For example, BYD’s new megawatt chargers aren’t open to third-party vehicles.
As of September 2024, China had expanded its charging infrastructure to 11.4 million EV chargers, but only 3.3 million were public.
Read more: California now has nearly 50% more EV chargers than gas nozzles
If you live in an area that has frequent natural disaster events, and are interested in making your home more resilient to power outages, consider going solar and adding a battery storage system. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Tesla is starting to experience some consequences for misleading Full Self Driving customers – at least that’s the finding of one arbitration ruling that has Tesla refunding one customer $10,000 plus legal fees for failing to deliver on their promises. Find out more on today’s legally challenging episode of Quick Charge!
An arbitration “court” found that Tesla misled customers with its Full Self Driving product, and has now been forced to refund at least one person’s $10,000 payment (plus legal fees) for the not-quite autonomous driving software. France, too, is piling on claims of deceptive business practices – but there’s some good news for FSD fans! If you’re still willing to pay for it, Tesla will thrown in 0% financing on a brand new Cybertruck.
Check out the relevant links, below, to learn more.
Source Links
Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.
Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike