Dan O’Dowda vocal critic of Tesla‘s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software was revealed to be the buyer of three original Tesla Roadsters discovered in a shipping container at a Chinese port last year.
Unique find: These three Roadsters, two in orange and one in red, are unique in that they were never titled. They were originally purchased more than 13 years ago and shipped to China, but the company that purchased them went out of business, leading to the container being seized by Chinese authorities. At the time, each Roadster cost $160,000.
Dowd’s collection: O’Dowd purchased the Roadsters for a combined price of $800,000, his spokesperson told Benzinga, which puts the price per vehicle close to $266,667, more expensive than what you’d pay for two high-end Cybertrucks.
He already owns two other red Roadsters nicknamed Candy and Mandy. One of the two was acquired when Tesla announced it would stop production. In total, she now owns eight Teslas: five Roadsters, two Model 3 sedans and an original Model S.
Context and support: O’Dowd is the CEO of Green Hills Software and founder of The Dawn Project, which aims to promote safer software in various applications, including electric vehicles. However, he and The Dawn Project are best known within the electric vehicle community for their campaign in support of a ban on Tesla’s FSD software.
Anti-FSD campaign: Earlier this month, The Dawn Project ran two ads during the Super Bowl championship calling for a boycott of Tesla. The ads accused Tesla of failing to address security concerns raised by the group about its FSD software and called on viewers to boycott the company.
“When you buy a new Tesla, you are funding and enabling Elon Musk to put a dangerous, unfinished product on our public roads,” O’Dowd said. “Boycott Tesla now to keep your children and families safe from Tesla’s self-driving cars.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the allegations by saying O’Dowd “lost his balls.”
Reasons for purchasing: In an exclusive interview with Benzinga last year, O’Dowd mentioned that he uses a Roadster to commute to work, his wife uses the Model S, and The Dawn Project uses two Model 3s for their experiments.
Contrasting or not? A spokesperson for The Dawn Project told Benzinga that while O’Dowd opposes the “flawed” FSD, he has no problem with Tesla as a whole. “These three examples are particularly special and precious given their extraordinary history and the fact that they are the only Roadsters in the world to have never been titled, which also makes them an excellent investment!”
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