Mark Rober just set up one of the most interesting self-driving tests of 2025, and he did it by imitating Looney Tunes. The former NASA engineer and current YouTube mad scientist recreated the classic gag where Wile E. Coyote paints a tunnel onto a wall to fool the Road Runner.

Only this time, the test subject wasn’t a cartoon bird… it was a self-driving Tesla Model Y.

The result? A full-speed, 40 MPH impact straight into the wall. Watch the video and tell us what you think!

  • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    They should just program it to drive through the painted tunnel but when another driver comes behind you they crash into it.

  • teuto@lemmy.teuto.icu
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    5 hours ago

    According to Ol’ Elon the robo-taxi service has been a couple months away since 2017 or so. I can’t imagine it’s much closer now than then.

  • MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    All these years, I always thought all self driving cars used LiDAR or something to see in 3D/through fog. How was this allowed on the roads for so long?

    • Feersummendjinn@feddit.uk
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      4 hours ago

      They originally the model S had front facing radar and ultrasonic sensors all round, the car combined the information to corroborate it’s visual interpretation.
      According to reports years ago the radar saved Tesla’s from multiple pileups when it detected crashes multiple cars ahead (that the driver couldn’t see).
      Elmo in his infinite ego demanded both the radar and ultrasonics be removed, since he could drive with out that input so the car should be able to… also it is cheaper.

      • Ronno@feddit.nl
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        3 hours ago

        Exactly, my previous car (BMW) once saved me in the fog by emergency braking for something I wasn’t able to see yet. My current car (Tesla) shuts down almost all safety features when the camera’s can’t see anything, so I doubt it will help me in such situations. The only time my Tesla works well is in perfect conditions, but I don’t live in California.

    • TheYang@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      They do.

      But “all self driving cars” are practically only from waymo.
      Level 4 Autonomy is the point at which it’s not required that a human can intercede at any moment, and as such has to be actively paying attention and be sober.
      Tesla is not there yet.

      On the other hand, this is an active attack against the technology.
      Mirrors or any super-absorber (possibly vantablack or similar) would fuck up LIDAR. Which is a good reason for diversifying the Sensors.

      On the other hand I can understand Tesla going “Humans use visible light only, in principle that has to be sufficient for a self driving car as well”, because, in principle I agree. In practice… well, while this seems much more click-bait than an actual issue for a self-driving taxi, diversifying your Input chain makes a lot of sense in my book. On the other hand, if it would cost me 20k more down the road, and Cameras would reach the same safety, I’d be a bit pissed.

      • dan@upvote.au
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        5 hours ago

        Most non Tesla brands that have some sort of self-driving functionality use lidar and/or radar. I’ve got a BMW iX and as far as I know it uses cameras, radar, lidar, and ultrasonic sensors.

    • Breadhax0r@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      I remember reading that tesla only uses cameras for it’s self driving. My 2018 Honda uses radar for the adaptive cruise so the technology exists, musk is just an idiot.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Does it? My 2023 model throws a shit fit if it’s cold and I assume the camera covers are iced over.

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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          5 hours ago

          It probably has cameras as well, for lane guidance etc.

          My Mazda complains if the windscreen is dirty for the same reason.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Radar doesn’t detect stopped objects at high speed. It’d hit the wall too on radar alone.

        This has to be solved by vision and or lidar.

        • Breadhax0r@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Unless your car is traveling faster than the speed of light, radar will detect objects in front of it. But yeah, I was trying to imply that for a complex system like self driving musk is a buffoon for relying on a single system instead of creating a more robust package of sensors.

  • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Honestly all the fails with the kid dummy were a way bigger deal than the wall test. The kid ones will happen a hundred times more than the wall scenario.

    Some sort of radar or lidar should 100% be required on autonomous cars.

    • Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de
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      9 hours ago

      I fully agree, but sadly, investors likely care more about their cars hitting walls than hitting kids. Killing a kid or pedestrian in the US is often a very cheap fine. When my uncle was run over on a sidewalk next to his son, the police ruled it an accident and the city refused to do anything. Same thing happened when my friend was ran over in a bike lane… So killing humans is probably cheaper than hitting a wall.

      • shawn1122@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        Interesting that in the most consumerist nation on earth, objects have more value than people.

  • conicalscientist@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    Anyone with half a brain could tell you plain cameras is a non-starter. This is nearly a Juicero level blunder. Tesla is not a serious car company nor tech company. If markets were rational it would have been the end for Tesla.

    • Michal@programming.dev
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      44 minutes ago

      Notably, roomba vacuum cleaners use cameras instead of lidar that other robot vacuums use. I bought a high end roomba a couple months ago and it was crap at navigating my home, while my old xiaomi with a lidar works perfectly fine. Needless to say i returned the roomba.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      11 hours ago

      If markets were rational, CEO compensation would never have grown so high, and there’d be no billionaires either.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      16 hours ago

      Austin should just pull the permits until all the taxis have lidar installed and tested. Or write a bill that fines the manufacturer $100 billion for any self driving car that kills a person and puts the proceeds 50% to the family and 50% to infrastructure. One of the first rules of robotics was always about not harming humans.

  • happydoors@lemm.ee
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    16 hours ago

    I love that one of the largest YouTubers is the one that did this. Surely, somebody near our federal government will throw a hissy fit if he hears about this but Mark’s audience is ginormous

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Honestly I think Mark should be more scared of Disney coming after him for mapping out their space mountain ride.

      • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        He probably just made Disney admissions and security even more annoying for everyone else.

        • TheYang@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          Judging by the fact that he has an imagineer-video out (effectively) at the same time as the space-mountain mapping, I’d expect that Disney was fully aware of what he was doing, and the whole sneaky-thing was just to make it more appealing to viewers.

  • rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    The rain test was far more concerning because it’s much more realistic of a scenario. Both a normal person and the lidar would’ve seen the kid and stopped, but the cameras and image processing just isn’t good enough to make out a person in the rain. That’s bad. The test portrays it as a person in the middle of a straight road, but I don’t see why the same thing wouldn’t happen at a crosswalk or other place where pedestrians are often in the path of a vehicle. If an autonomous system cannot make out pedestrians in the rain reliably, that alone should be enough to prevent these vehicles from being legal.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      16 hours ago

      The question there would be does Austin have crosswalks that don’t have red lights. Many places put a light at every cross walk, but not all. Most beaches don’t have them at every crosswalk, they just have laws that if someone is in or entering the crosswalk you have to stop for the pedestrians. (They would all be at risk from what you are saying).

      • booly@sh.itjust.works
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        9 hours ago

        Yes, there are mid-block crosswalks in some of the walkable parts of Austin. There are also roundabouts with yield signs and crosswalks and no lights.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 hours ago

          That will cause huge issues possibly. Do you live near there? We need to get this information to the public in those areas. Even if it is raining. Do not cross without checking over and over. We need to ban them from being there, but we need to protect the people first. 1 life may overturn the law, but 1 life shouldn’t be lost. It’s better we figure out an alternative

      • deltapi@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        I don’t know the answer to your question, but I’ll add that I’ve seen major cities that have overhead yellow flashing light boxes that mean “you must stop if there is a pedestrian crossing the road”

      • Tot@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Not every pedestrian follows the rules of the lights though. And not every pedestrian makes it across the road in time before the light changes colors from red to green.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 hours ago

          I didn’t say anything about whether it was adequate. The fact is it is going live. Trying to find weak spots and dangerous areas and point them out to people is all we can do at this stage.

  • King3d@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    This is like the crash on a San Francisco bridge that happened because of a Tesla that went into a tunnel and it wasn’t sure what to do since it went from bright daylight to darkness. In this case the Tesla just suddenly merged lanes and then immediately stopped and caused a multi car pile up.

    • fallingcats@discuss.tchncs.de
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      18 hours ago

      You’d think they have cameras with higher dynamic range and faster auto exposure in their cars by now. Nope, still penny pinching.

        • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
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          15 hours ago

          Yeah, pulling radar from the cars was the beginning of the end. Early teslas had radar, and that was what led to all of the “car sees something three vehicles ahead and brakes to avoid a pileup that hasn’t even started yet” type of collision avoidance videos. First, pulling radar was a cost cutting thing. Then Elon demanded that they pull out the lidar too, and that’s when their crash numbers skyrocketed.

          • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            They never had lidar, in addition to radar they removed the ultrasound sensors for parking, which is stupid because they cost like $2 and for parking they’re much better than cameras. Same for the rain sensor. Why use a $1 rain sensor that always works reliably all the time in any visibility when you can do that with cameras and complex algorithms?..

            • Tja@programming.dev
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              2 hours ago

              It’s been about 7 years of model 3 on the market, maybe 8, and the rain detection still doesn’t work reliably. Or the traffic sign recognition (in Europe). My car fortunately still has the ultrasound sensors. Phantom braking is still an issue, too. Thank God for stocks for blinkers and drive/reverse.

              I like the car in general, but it has the dumbest fails, things everyone else seems to have figured out.

              Other cars also have dumb mistakes, like electric cars with no frunk. Literally bolted down hoods. Looking at you, German auto industry…

              • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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                4 hours ago

                The lidar car in the video is a modified Lexus prototype (came with radar from factory, modified by a third party, with Lexus branding blacked out and replaced with the third party name)

                Afaik at the moment there are no cars in the market that have lidar (waymo is adding lidar to cars that have only radar as stock)