Super Bowl commercials are lots of fun, but they sometimes spur controversy instead of lighthearted giggles. The Dawn Project, founded and helmed by billionaire CEO Dan O’Dowd, sponsored an anti-Tesla ad during the Super Bowl last weekend, but the group’s claims were almost immediately called out by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), whose logo The Dawn Project used without permission.
“The NTSB had no involvement in the production of this advertisement, did not authorize the use of its seal, nor does it endorse the work of The Dawn Project.” The group updated its video on Monday night, removing the NTSB logo. In its ad, the Dawn Project showed the NTSB seal with a news report from 2023 covering a crash in which a Tesla Model Y hit a student exiting a school bus in North Carolina.
Though other investigations have been confirmed, the NTSB said it did not investigate the North Carolina incident. The organization raised concerns about Tesla’s autopilot system and the types of driver-monitoring the vehicles do to prevent misuse.
The Dawn Project sponsored a Super Bowl ad last year but said that this year’s ad was meant to show Tesla’s flaunting of NTSB safety recommendations. “We were referring to Tesla refusing to implement the NTSB’s prudent safety recommendations, with which The Dawn Project fully agrees. Unlike Tesla, we have great respect for the NTSB.”
[Image: T. Schneider via Shutterstock]
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