The Dawn Project has today published a full page advertisement in The New York Times highlighting the dangers of Tesla Full Self-Driving after safety tests revealed that it will repeatedly run down child-sized mannequins in its path.
The Dawn Project’s advertisement was published in The New York Times today, and can be seen here.
The ad reports that safety tests conducted by The Dawn Project reveal that Elon Musk’s Full Self-Driving software would repeatedly run down child-sized mannequins in its path.
Our survey shows that 93% of registered voters agree that a Full Self-Driving car that would run down a child in the road must be banned from our roads immediately. We publicly demonstrated it would do that three months ago and it still does it today. Why didn’t National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) or the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) recall this product months ago, in accordance with the will of the people?
93% of the people can’t agree on anything except getting this completely useless and obviously defective product off our roads! How many children need to die before NHTSA or the DMV will implement the will of the people?
By now Elon Musk, the Tesla engineers, and the Board of Directors of Tesla all know that their product will mow down a child walking in a crosswalk. Yet they continue to recklessly sell and distribute a product that they know is defective and deadly. They continue to direct the resources of the world’s richest man to churn out new features and conveniences for their Full Self-Driving product, but not to fixing its deadly defects.
The lawyers are going to have a field day demanding immense punitive damages sufficient to punish the world’s richest man and his company (worth more than GM, Ford, and Mercedes Benz put together) to deter them from doing this again.
Manslaughter is committing an act that results in the death of a person, where the defendant knew that their conduct might endanger lives, and the act was inherently dangerous.
Elon Musk, Tesla, its engineers, and the members of its Board of Directors are all personally responsible for all the deaths and injuries to child pedestrians caused by their Full Self-Driving software:
- They are fully aware of a deadly safety defect, yet they don’t fix it. They prioritize marketing features more highly
- They are able to remove the danger quickly and cheaply with an over-the-air update that disables Full Self-Driving, but instead they rapidly expand its distribution, which threatens more children
- They do not notify existing customers of this serious safety defect in their cars
- They do not notify prospective purchasers of the defect in their product before they purchase
- They promote their self-driving software as being nine times safer than human drivers, but any human driver would stop for a child in the road
- For six years, every year they promised that if you pay them now, they will deliver a fully autonomous vehicle the following year, but they never have
- They reap immense profits from sales of Tesla stock at prices elevated by their false claims about the capabilities, safety and availability of Full Self-Driving software
A prosecutor could scarcely hope for a more clear-cut manslaughter case: dead children, dire warnings, full awareness, recklessness, refusal to mitigate despite ability, mountains of false claims and video evidence, vast profits, and arrogance beyond belief.
To be found not guilty of manslaughter the defendant only needs to convince one out of 12 jurors. That is 8.3% of the jurors. But 93% of the public ‘jurors’ have already made up their mind that it is wrong to put this product on the road.
Elon Musk is personally culpable because he could eliminate this danger with an order to recall the product until this defect is fixed, but he refuses.
The engineers could eliminate this danger by dropping everything else and figuring out how to fix this defect. Or they could file whistleblower reports with NHTSA and the DMV, tell their stories of how this came about to journalists, and quit an organization that does this. Otherwise they are fully culpable.
The Directors have the power to fire Elon Musk, recall this product until this and many other safety defects are fixed, or they could resign and spill everything they know to regulators and journalists.
But the people who could fix or significantly mitigate this danger will not do so because they fear that it could significantly reduce the immense value of their stock or stock options.
Prosecutors, I have set the table for you, have at it.
To see The Dawn Project’s safety tests of Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta 10.69.2.2 with child-sized mannequins, please click here.