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!

  • Polderviking@feddit.nl
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    17 hours ago

    I remember elon saying something along the lines of his camera system being just as good and they thusly don’t need to employ things like LIDAR.

  • RambaZamba@feddit.org
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    1 day ago

    Things that happen when you rely exclusively on optical sensors, i.e. cameras. But that’s just cheaper, more money for Nazi Elon.

      • Tzig@sh.itjust.works
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        17 hours ago

        The hardware is, which is the important part at scale: even if the code is 10x more expensive when you sell millions of the car it becomes pennies/car

  • Jeffool @lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    This would be hilarious if it weren’t for shitty cars causing deaths.

    That said, I always wondered why we don’t find a system like RFID that could penetrate concrete and asphalt, and plant passive receivers in roads? We re-pave roads so damn often in this country (the U.S.) it seems like we could’ve knocked it out in the past couple of decades, minus our most rural areas.

    I know RFID itself isn’t strong enough, but I imagine that would’ve been an easier problem than figuring our complete self driving. Not to mention making GPS a secondary system for U.S. road travel in most cases.

    Maybe it’s just a dumb shower thought?

    • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      What you’re describing is just a higher level of autonomy. If I remember correctly, you’re describing level 3 whereas Tesla’s are level 2. I believe VW made a level 3 proof of concept mini bus back around 2020 but the legislation doesn’t allow for the sensors in the road yet because… Oh that’s right. A level 2 car manufacturer owns like half the world right now which means nobody is allowed to innovate or do better than him. Huh, that sucks.

      • towerful@programming.dev
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        20 hours ago

        Echolocation is specifically audio based.
        Lidar is a similar technique, but much more accurate and precise.
        Project a grid of laser beam, read when the laser bounces back, you know the distance to that part of the grid.

      • Jeffool @lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I don’t know the value of echolocation in this case, as I’m generally ignorant here, but it’s straight wild to me that they went purely on visuals.

        • dan@upvote.au
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          1 day ago

          Tesla used to also have radar (and maybe lidar?) but they removed it as a cost cutting measure. If you ever see older videos of a Tesla slowing down or stopping due to a potential collision a few cars ahead, that’s from before they switched to only relying on cameras. The collision avoidance was significantly better back then.

  • Yoga@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Insurance fraud is going to bankrupt Tesla robotaxis faster than an incompetent CEO ever could.

    There will be too many ways to defeat the cameras and not having LiDAR unlike the rest of the industry may prove to be found to be a failure of duty of care.

    • bier@feddit.nl
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      1 day ago

      In short because Elon (wrongly) believes you only need cameras, he made the claim people also drive with just 2 eyes.

      The thing is, we recognize a truck with stickers of a stopsign, while AI vision gets confused.

      Waymo (Googles self driving side hussle) was build on lidar and other sensors and has been using robot taxis for many years now in geofenced specific areas.

      • ferret@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        The funny thing is, apparently our depth perception, a product of our two eyes, is a feature beyond the reach of tesla. And it would have allowed to to complete this test.

      • Yoga@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        The thing is, we recognize a truck with stickers of a stopsign, while AI vision gets confused.

        Lmao would it be illegal to put a stop sign on the back of your car?

        • kelseybcool@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          Some school buses have a sticker / sign on the back that says “I stop for railroad crossings” and can have a stop sign on said sticker.

  • Magnus@lemmy.brandyapple.com
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    2 days ago

    I remember Elon foolishly saying his cars don’t need radar or lidar. Even software-disabling radar in cars that already had the hardware.

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Not even just his cars, he thinks the MILITARY, doesn’t need radar and can just use cameras to spot and track stealth fighters.

      He’s a fucking lunatic.

      • towerful@programming.dev
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        20 hours ago

        As an augmentation, the ability to spot and track objects visually would be amazing.
        But then planes just have to fly above 10k ft, and pretty much guaranteed cloud cover.

    • KayLeadfoot@fedia.ioOP
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      1 day ago

      It’s dirt cheap, too. If this was a cost-cutting measure, it was a thoroughly idiotic one. Which feels like the mark… of a certain someone I can think of

  • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    This is why it’s fucking stupid Tesla removed Lidar sensors and relies on cameras only.

    But also who would want a tesla, fuck em

    • AreaKode@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I was horrified when I learned that the autopilot relies entirely on cameras. Nope, nope, nope.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Leon said other sensors were unnecessary because human driving is all done through the sense of sight…proving that he has no idea how humans work either (despite purportedly being a human).

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      They never had lidarr. They used to have radar and uss but they decided “vision” was good enough. This conveniently occurred when they had supply chain issues during covid.

    • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
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      2 days ago

      They also removed radar, which is what allowed them to make all of those “it saw something three vehicles ahead and braked to avoid a pileup that hadn’t even started yet” videos. Removing radar was the single most impactful change Tesla made in regards to FSD, and it’s all because Musk basically decided “people drive fine with just their eyes, so cars should too.”

  • Naevermix@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Make Elon test ride the first Tesla robotaxi and there’s a chance the funniest thing of all time will happen.

  • EaterOfLentils@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Apparently they keep getting tickets in China because they didn’t bother to adjust the settings to accommodate Chinese roads and traffic laws. Result is Tesla is getting utterly crushed by BYD in their one major market that doesn’t care about Elon’s antics.

  • Ghyste@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    I seem to recall that fElon prevented the self driving team from utilizing LIDAR for any part of the system, instead demanding that everything run off of optical input. Does anyone else remember the same?

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Yes. He took too much inspiration from Stanford University’s “Stanley” winning the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005. This was an early completion to build viable autonomous vehicles. Most of them looked like tanks covered in radar dishes but Stanford wound up taking home the gold with just an SUV with cameras on it.

      It was an impressive achievement in computer vision, and the LiDAR-encrusted vehicles wound up looking like over-complex dinosaurs. There’s a great documentary about it narrated by John Lithgow (who, throughout it, pronounces the word robot as “ro-butt”). Elon watched it, made up his mind, and like a moron, hasn’t changed it in 20 years. I’m almost Musk’s age so I know how the years speed up as we go on. He probably thinks about the Stanford win as something that happened relatively recently. Especially with his mind on - ahem - other things, he’s not keeping up with recent developments out in the real world.

      Rober just made Musk look like the absolute tool he is. And I’m a little worried that we may see people out there staging real world versions of this somehow with actual dangerous obstacles, not a cartoonish foam wall.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      What’s cool is that Teslas used to have radar sensors, at least, but Elon removed them from production to save money. Even if you have a car from back then, the software no longer uses them and they’ll just physically unplug them the next time you have the car serviced, as it’s just a drain on the battery at this point 🙃

    • Kokesh@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Came here to actually write this. Everyone remembers that. He made Tesler the hated shit it is today.

      • Ghyste@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        As a space nut I seriously hope that he never gets a chance to do anything similar with SpaceX. Thankfully he’s mostly been kept away from important things thus far.

        Don’t get me wrong, I know SpaceX’s closet is overflowing with skeletons. But since Congress has been so kind as to continuously cut NASA’s budget for the last few decades, I have to rely on SpaceX and other private companies to keep our space endeavors going.

  • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    And that’s what you get for cheaping out on tech and going with cameras over lidar. Not only that, but Tesla removed all the radar technology that literally every car uses for collision detection about a year ago.

    • KayLeadfoot@fedia.ioOP
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      2 days ago

      The radar module on my truck costs $70.

      The richest man on earth doesn’t think the lives of your vehicle’s passengers are worth $17.50 a pop.

      And that’s to a knuckledragger like me, buying a single radar unit online. I’m sure the manufacturer gets insane quantity discounts.