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Read: Tesla’s full cease-and-desist letter to The Dawn Project over its anti-FSD campaign
After weeks of Dan O’Dowd’s The Dawn Project aggressively pushing its new anti-FSD ad, Tesla has sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that the campaign be stopped immediately.
A full copy of Tesla’s cease-and-desist letter was recently shared online courtesy of FSD Beta tester @WholeMarsCatalog. As could be seen in the document, Tesla was quite thorough in its arguments against O’Dowd’s anti-FSD campaign. The electric vehicle maker also made it a point to highlight that its vehicles consistently rank among the safest in the industry, as validated by international testing agencies.
Following is the text of Tesla’s cease-and-desist letter.
AUGUST 11, 2022
VIA EMAIL AND OVERNIGHT MAIL
Mr. Daniel O’Dowd, Founder and CEO
The Dawn Project, Inc.
Re: Cease and Desist
Dear Mr. O’Dowd:
It has come to our attention that you, personally, and The Dawn Project have been disparaging Tesla’s commercial interests and disseminating defamatory information to the public regarding the capabilities of Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) (Beta) technology. We demand that you immediately cease and desist further dissemination of all defamatory information, issue a formal public retraction within 24 hours and provide Tesla with the below demanded documentation.
Californians soundly rejected a political campaign, which was based on the single issue of spreading misinformation about Tesla, with barely 1% of voters in California’s U.S. Senate Race showing support for this platform. Despite the public’s very clear rejection, you and The Dawn Project continue to spread misinformation about Tesla, by falsely claiming that Tesla’s FSD (Beta) technology will not recognize children and by falsely stating that the feature will run over children when it is engaged. The purported tests misuse and misrepresent the capabilities of Tesla’s technology, and disregard widely recognized testing performed by independent agencies as well as the experiences shared by our customers. In fact, unsolicited scrutiny of the methodology behind The Dawn Project’s tests has already (and within hours of you publicly making defamatory allegations) shown that the testing is seriously deceptive and likely fraudulent.
First, to be clear, FSD Beta incorporates safety by design and does recognize pedestrians, including children, and when utilized properly, the system reacts to prevent or mitigate a collision. In addition, every Tesla is equipped with Forward Collision Warning to warn drivers of an impending frontal collision; Automatic Emergency Braking to apply braking when an obstacle is detected that the Tesla may impact; and Obstacle-Aware Acceleration to reduce acceleration when an obstacle ahead is in the driving path.
Second, the totality of these safety features are the reason why Tesla vehicles have earned a reputation for being the safest on the road. Contrary to the obviously results-driven bias of your purported tests, independent safety agencies have rated Tesla’s safety at the highest levels. For example, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), an independent nonprofit scientific organization dedicated to reducing death and injuries on the roadways, rates current tested Tesla models with “superior” Automatic Emergency Braking for both vehicle-to-pedestrian prevention and vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. Notably, the IIHS conducted tests simulating crossing children for the 2022 Tesla Model 3 and 2022 Tesla Model Y, and in the tests, both models avoided collisions with the child dummies.
In contrast, your testing and methodology have already received swift and public rebukes from multiple sources. For example, the commercial you released claims that the tests shown were performed with Tesla’s FSD Beta engaged. But Electrek reported that your our own videos clearly show that FSD Beta was not engaged at times. Similarly, Electrek reports that The Dawn Project manipulated its video after being confronted with the defamatory nature of its advertisement. Despite your clear knowledge of the misleading nature of the advertisements, you continue to promote and disseminate these advertisements on multiple mediums.
While you and The Dawn Project purport to advocate for safety, the videos portray unsafe and improper use of FSD Beta and active safety features. Your actions actually put consumers at risk.
Accordingly, we demand the following:
1. Immediately cease and desist the dissemination of all defamatory advertisements;
2. Immediately remove the videos under the caption “Test Track” from The Dawn Project
website and any website where you or The Dawn Project disseminated a copy;
3. Issue a public retraction of all defamatory and false claims within 24 hours of receipt of this correspondence;
4. Disclose all sources of funding for the purported “tests” in the commercial, including whether any campaign funds were used or whether you were funded by Tesla’s competitors;
5. Disclose all recognized regulatory agencies that endorsed your testing methodology and/or results.
Furthermore, you and The Dawn Project, including any and all employees, officers, directors, and agents, are hereby placed on notice that Tesla demands that you preserve all documents, including communications, videos, and data, related to your purported tests and advertisements (including print and video) along with any and all communications surrounding the same. Tesla will exercise all legal remedies available to it in the event of your non-compliance with the above and reserves all rights. Please adjust your actions accordingly.
Very truly yours,
Dinna Eskin, Esq.
Sr. Director and Deputy General Counsel
Tesla, Inc.
Cc: The Dawn Project, Inc. Registered Agent
1505 Corporation
986
National Registered Agents, Inc.
🦇 💩 crazy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2022
While Tesla’s cease-and-desist letter shows that Tesla is dead serious about stopping The Dawn Project’s anti-FSD campaign, Elon Musk himself appears to be taking the events in stride, at least for now. In a response on Twitter, Musk simply posted a couple of emojis suggesting that the whole scenario is “bat sh*t crazy.”
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Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end with no interventions.
A Tesla Model S has completed the first-ever full Cannonball Run using Full Self-Driving (FSD), traveling from Los Angeles to New York with zero interventions. The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end, fulfilling a long-discussed benchmark for autonomy.
A full FSD Cannonball Run
As per a report from The Drive, a 2024 Tesla Model S with AI4 and FSD v14.2.2.3 completed the 3,081-mile trip from Redondo Beach in Los Angeles to midtown Manhattan in New York City. The drive was completed by Alex Roy, a former automotive journalist and investor, along with a small team of autonomy experts.
Roy said FSD handled all driving tasks for the entirety of the route, including highway cruising, lane changes, navigation, and adverse weather conditions. The trip took a total of 58 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 64 mph, and about 10 hours were spent charging the vehicle. In later comments, Roy noted that he and his team cleaned out the Model S’ cameras during their stops to keep FSD’s performance optimal.
History made
The historic trip was quite impressive, considering that the journey was in the middle of winter. This meant that FSD didn’t just deal with other cars on the road. The vehicle also had to handle extreme cold, snow, ice, slush, and rain.
As per Roy in a post on X, FSD performed so well during the trip that the journey would have been completed faster if the Model S did not have people onboard. “Elon Musk was right. Once an autonomous vehicle is mature, most human input is error. A comedy of human errors added hours and hundreds of miles, but FSD stunned us with its consistent and comfortable behavior,” Roy wrote in a post on X.
Roy’s comments are quite notable as he has previously attempted Cannonball Runs using FSD on December 2024 and February 2025. Neither were zero intervention drives.
Elon Musk
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders.
Tesla removed its basic Autopilot package as a standard feature in the United States. The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders, and shifts the company’s strategy towards paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions.
Tesla removes Autopilot
As per observations from the electric vehicle community on social media, Tesla no longer lists Autopilot as standard in its vehicles in the U.S. This suggests that features such as lane-centering and Autosteer have been removed as standard equipment. Previously, most Tesla vehicles came with Autopilot by default, which offers Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer.
The change resulted in backlash from some Tesla owners and EV observers, particularly as competing automakers, including mainstream players like Toyota, offer features like lane-centering as standard on many models, including budget vehicles.
That being said, the removal of Autopilot suggests that Tesla is concentrating its autonomy roadmap around FSD subscriptions rather than bundled driver-assistance features. It would be interesting to see how Tesla manages its vehicles’ standard safety features, as it seems out of character for Tesla to make its cars less safe over time.
Musk announces FSD price increases
Following the Autopilot changes, Elon Musk stated on X that Tesla is planning to raise subscription prices for FSD as its capabilities improve. In a post on X, Musk stated that the current $99-per-month price for supervised FSD would increase over time, especially as the system itself becomes more robust.
“I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve. The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (Unsupervised FSD),” Musk wrote.
At the time of his recent post, Tesla still offers FSD as a one-time purchase for $8,000, but Elon Musk has confirmed that this option will be discontinued on February 14, leaving subscriptions as the only way to access the system.
Tesla has initiated Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time, as the all-electric pickup has officially made its way to the United Arab Emirates, marking the newest territory to receive the polarizing truck.
Tesla launched orders for the Cybertruck in the Middle East back in September 2025, just months after the company confirmed that it planned to launch the pickup in the region, which happened in April.
I took a Tesla Cybertruck weekend Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned
By early October, Tesla launched the Cybertruck configurator in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with pricing starting at around AED 404,900, or about $110,000 for the Dual Motor configuration.
This decision positioned the Gulf states as key early international markets, and Tesla was hoping to get the Cybertruck outside of North America for the first time, as it has still been tough to launch in other popular EV markets, like Europe and Asia.
By late 2025, Tesla had pushed delivery timelines slightly and aimed for an early 2026 delivery launch in the Middle East. The first official customer deliveries started this month, and a notable handover event occurred in Dubai’s Al Marmoom desert area, featuring a light and fire show.
Around 63 Cybertrucks made their way to customers during the event:
First @cybertruck deliveries in the UAE 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/sN2rAxppUA
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) January 22, 2026
As of this month, the Cybertruck still remains available for configuration on Tesla’s websites for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan and Israel. Deliveries are rolling out progressively, with the UAE leading as the first to see hands-on customer events.
In other markets, most notably Europe, there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles that Tesla is hoping to work through, but they may never be resolved. The issues come from the unique design features that conflict with the European Union’s (EU) stringent safety standards.
These standards include pedestrian protection regulations, which require vehicles to minimize injury risks in collisions. However, the Cybertruck features sharp edges and an ultra-hard stainless steel exoskeleton, and its rigid structure is seen as non-compliant with the EU’s list of preferred designs.
The vehicle’s gross weight is also above the 3.5-tonne threshold for standard vehicles, which has prompted Tesla to consider a more compact design. However, the company’s focus on autonomy and Robotaxi has likely pushed that out of the realm of possibility.
For now, Tesla will work with the governments that want it to succeed in their region, and the Middle East has been a great partner to the company with the launch of the Cybertruck.
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
