Tesla’s Full Self-Driving made this man so mad he’s running for Senate

Enlarge / Dan O'Dowd's campaign wants the link to Ralph Nader's safety campaign to be explicit. (credit: Dan O'Dowd)

Single-issue candidates for the US Senate aren't the usual fodder for Ars' car coverage, but it seems like an exception might exist for Dan O'Dowd. O'Dowd, an engineer and CEO of a software company, is running for one of California's Senate seats on a platform to ban Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" feature.

Tesla's stratospheric valuation owes a fair amount to the company's futuristic-sounding FSD feature, which promises a truly autonomous car that could even work the streets while its owner sleeps. But the company's progress has been rocky, switching compute platforms and ditching sensors while trying to match the functionality of older Teslas built with simpler but more robust advanced driving assistance systems.

FSD is an important money-maker for Tesla, however. In January Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors that "full-self-driving will become the most important source of profitability for Tesla." And the company has repeatedly raised the price for the feature—what started as a $6,000 option in 2019 is now a $12,000 option.