Ralph Nader Wants Musk's Self-Driving Cars Banned

Ralph Nader, the man who forever changed vehicle safety standards in the US has a scathing new message for Elon Musk and Tesla’s self-driving car technology: He thinks it’s dangerous, and regulators should get involved.

Photo Insert: A lawyer, Nader has been both a celebrity and a pariah for carmakers ever since 1965, when he published his bestselling book “Unsafe at Any Speed.”

Musk has been touting self-driving cars as the next big thing for years, saying in 2015 that autonomous vehicles would be on the road within two years.

While that timeline hasn’t come to fruition, Musk has not yet given up on his dream, nor has he tempered his ambitions. In May 2022, he stated that full self-driving (FSD) cars should be available by the same time next year, Tristan Bove reported for Fortune.

Nader, a four-time presidential candidate and a forefather of modern vehicle safety standards, has made his view on FSD vehicles clear.

He has called Tesla employing FSD systems in its cars “one of the most dangerous and irresponsible actions by a car company in decades” and that Tesla should “never have put this technology in its vehicles,” in a statement released Wednesday on his personal website.

A lawyer, Nader has been both a celebrity and a pariah for carmakers ever since 1965, when he published his bestselling book “Unsafe at Any Speed,” a scathing look at the automobile manufacturing industry and its refusal to implement and recommend safety features such as seat belts, airbags and antilock brakes.

He also urged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to recall FSD technology from every Tesla vehicle in circulation. “I am calling on federal regulators to act immediately to prevent the growing deaths and injuries from Tesla manslaughtering crashes with this technology,” he wrote.

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