Featured Image Credit: The Dawn Project
Elon Musk is being asked to answer more questions about his self-driving Teslas, with concerning footage seeming to show one hitting a child-sized mannequin.
After years of making promises about FSD and robotaxis, the electric vehicle giant is finally out on the road in Austin, Texas.
While robotaxis still require supervision, there are a number of videos appearing online, showing what happens when things go wrong.
This is already music to the ears of The Dawn Project, with founder Dan O'Dowd being no fan of Elon Musk.
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Although O'Dowd recently celebrated a potential robotaxi setback, Musk has managed to get a small fleet of his autonomous vehicles up and running.
During a staged event, The Dawn Project showed the latest version of Tesla's self-driving software overtake a school bus that has its red light flashing, then slam into a child-sized dummy that jumps out from in front of the bus.
It identified a pedestrian but failed to stop and then continued down the road. While it's true that a human driver would've also struggled to stop ahead of hitting the 'child', there are worries that FSD (Supervised)13.2.9 was involved in the incident.
The Dawn Project has its own anti-Tesla agenda, and we're reminded that the company's documentation reiterates how drivers should be ready to intervene at any given point, stating that it "requires a fully attentive driver and will display a series of escalating warnings requiring driver response."
The Dawn Project has previously taken out ads claiming that Tesla's FSD doesn't yield to school buses, while pressure against the company has mounted since motorcyclist Jeff Nissen died during an accident involving an FSD Model S in April 2024.
Speaking to The Register, O'Dowd said: "It's been two and a half or three years since we pointed this out in a Super Bowl advert. They just don't care. They have other priorities, like a robotaxi working on Austin streets, which is a priority. Elon sets priorities, and he's never made safety a priority."
Opinions were divided on the clip, with one Tesla supporter writing: "I love seeing these smear campaigns cause after the millions upon millions of miles FSD has driven is there any recorded data stating FSD is entirely responsible for running anyone over? I’ll wait."
One concerned motorist added: "@elonmusk Should we be worried about our kids? All the lawsuits are going to put @Tesla out of business. #roadkill."
A third said: "Mines stopped multiple times without issue for school buses and moved out of the way of pedestrians. It's weird how you're the only one running into issues."
The Dawn Project has conducted similar tests several times, especially in the aftermath of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reportedly investigating an incident where student Tillman Mitchell was struck by a Tesla Model Y when he exited a stopped school bus that had its red warning lights flashing.
The driver was supposedly using Tesla's early Autopilot driver-assist system and had tried to fool the hands-on detection by hanging weights on the steering wheel.
There have been similar complaints about Waymo's self-driving tech, although Tesla faces critiques after it went for a vision-based system that relies on software instead of the expensive Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors. Either way, we doubt The Dawn Project will be taking it easy on Tesla anytime soon.
