this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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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!

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[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 38 points 19 hours ago

To be fair, the roadrunner it was following somehow successfully ran into the painting.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 267 points 1 day ago (4 children)

OMFG someone test to see if Teslas stop to eat free bird seed.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 79 points 23 hours ago

TIL Mark Rober is a domestic terrorist

To any artists in Austin,TX: you have your work cut out for you. Godspeed.

[–] mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Taking a guess here, but I think Mark Rober is not a big trump/musk fan? :D

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[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 171 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It got fucking wile e coyoted

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 83 points 1 day ago

The scientists in Ireland calling their data set to prevent this exact fucking thing "Coyote" sent me over the moon.

[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 77 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 12 points 18 hours ago (5 children)

To be fair, I'd be surprised if half the humans driving didn't do the same.

[–] osugi_sakae@midwest.social 5 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

this. watching the video, I had some trouble telling the difference. sure, from some angles it is obvious, but from others it is not.

That said, other cars, with more types of sensors, would probably have "seen" the obstruction on the road.

[–] hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

I would have liked to see how a more typical car with automatic cruise control /braking functioned. I think they use ultra sonic sensors and would have done better than the Tesla.

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[–] jet@hackertalks.com 133 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)
[–] Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 8 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

I’m kinda confident that even RADAR + cameras was good enough, but they started shipping cars without it and even shutting off the RADAR in existing cars.

The main negative about LiDAR is the cost, but that’s quickly going down.

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[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 100 points 1 day ago (12 children)

"But humans can do it with their eyes!" - says the man not selling a human brain to go with the optical sensors

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[–] Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 109 points 1 day ago (10 children)

I saw the video pop up in my Youtube recommended, but didn't bother watching because I just assumed that any cars tested would be using LIDAR and thus would ignore the fake road just fine. I had no idea Tesla a) was still using basic cameras for this and b) actually had sophisticated enough "self driving" capabilities that this could be tested on them safely.

[–] Lukas@feddit.org 151 points 1 day ago (9 children)

They are not still using cameras but removed LIDAR and radar from their cars during the chip shortage 2020/21. The story they were telling was "humans don't have LIDAR but can drive cars as well, so the cars also only need 'eyes' like humans".

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 92 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Humans cannot, in fact, drive cars well. Humans kill tens of thousands of other humans with cars every year in the US alone.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 80 points 1 day ago (14 children)

Yup, cameras and humans share various exploits. Self-driving is going to work better than humans once every car has it and communicates with each other, allowing for minimal gaps even at high speeds, once roads are all very standardized and in a database, and-

Wait, that's trains

Fucking build more electrified high-speed rail and forget tech bros' shitty promises

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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 101 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And let me just add, Musk ordered the LIDAR removed against the engineers better judgement.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 22 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Did he have lidar removed? I thought it was radar. I didn't think any Tesla vehicle ever took on the cost of lidar.

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[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 26 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Small correction here: they never had LIDAR. Cars with LIDAR have big racks on top with a spinny thing measuring the surroundings. Teslas had radar but removed during the chip shortage (and disabled it on existing cars) and acted like it was an improvement. The radar was used for distance keeping on cars and could actually detect the car in front of the car by bouncing signals off the ground, it was really slick.

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[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 62 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They tested a LiDAR rigged car, and it stopped just like you predicted. As of 2021, Tesla uses only cameras for FSD, and not even radar (which my stupid fine Toyota truck has).

They tested the idea safely by building the wall out of styrofoam, or at least that's what it looks like when it blows apart :)

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[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 12 points 19 hours ago

Tesla is trash.

Fuck Elon musk.

[–] arankays@lemmy.ca 21 points 22 hours ago (16 children)

I tried Waymo when I was visiting LA a few months ago. Genuinely terrific stuff.

I do not trust Teslas one bit though.

[–] kenoh@lemm.ee 11 points 20 hours ago

Tesla doesn't use lidar for its sensing, living on the prayer that AI will just get good enough soon enough. Absolutely galaxy brained decision.

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