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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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[-] thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

So to stop robotaxis, all we have to do is paint a fake road directly into a rock wall with a painted on tunnel.

[-] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 0 points 1 month ago
[-] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee -1 points 1 month ago

Even a few non-robotaxi people.

[-] guynamedzero@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

Youtube mad scientist

Okay come on, Styropyro fits the bill way better for “mad scientist”

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[-] kane@femboys.biz 0 points 1 month ago

Can this be solved with just cameras, or would this need additional hardware? I know they removed LIDAR, but thought that would only be effective short range, and would not be too helpful at 65 km/h.

[-] bitchkat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Teslas never had LIDAR. They did have ultrasonic sensors and radar before they went to the this vision only crap.

[-] toddestan@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

Theoretically, yes. A human would be smart enough not to drive right into a painted wall, using only their eyeballs combined with their intelligence and sense of self-preservation. A smart enough vision system should be able to do the same.

Using something like LIDAR to directly sense obstacles would a lot more practical and reliable. LIDAR certainly has enough distance (airplanes use it too), though I don't know about the systems Tesla used specifically.

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[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Good question. I don’t know if they ll succeed but they have a point that humans do it with just vision so why can’t ai do at least as well? We’ll see. I’m happy someone is trying a different approach. Maybe lidar is necessary, but until someone succeeds we won’t know the best approach, so let’s be happy there’s at least one competing attempt

I gave it a try once and it was pretty amazing, but clearly not ready. Tesla is fantastic at “normal” driving, but the trial gave me a real appreciation how driving is all edge cases. At this point I’m no longer confident that anyone will solve the problem adequately for general use.

Plus there will be accidents. No matter how optimistic you may be, it will never be perfect. Are they ready for the liability and reputation hit? Can any company survive that, even if they are demonstrably better than human?

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[-] Overtheveloper@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

If for some bizarre reason you would want to stick to cameras only, you could use 2 cameras and calculate the distance to various points based on the difference between the images. Thats called stereoscopy and is precisely what gives our brains depth perception. The issue is that this process is expensive computationally so I'd guess that it would be cheaper to go back to lidar.

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[-] Coreidan@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Tesla is trash.

Fuck Elon musk.

[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago

Mark Rober. Why did it have to be Mark Rober.

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[-] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 month ago

can someone do this to trumps tesla please

[-] lonerangers1@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

In silicon valley there is an episode where a bunch of phones explode because of a software problem. A lot like the pager attack trump got a trophy for. And musk could take any of these cars and "self drive" them to where ever, and "update" their discharge parameters or something, then boom. The trucks are 10k lbs too. Bet you could take a small building down with one without much fuss. They are pretty fast. Scary shit. Musk is a huge problem. Watch all gov envoys being his swasticars and then he can take people out russian style. opps, accident, again.

Trump will never be in it. His security detail could never allow him to drive in it. Nor would the back seat ever be as comfortable as what he usually drives in so he wouldn't want to be in it unless it was for press purposes. There's a reason the Cadillac cost over a million dollars that the presidents usually drive around in.

[-] ladicius@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago

The real test starts at 11 minutes and shows frightening problems of the Nazi clown cars.

[-] cmhe@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago

I am a bit disappointed to not see the Tesla crash into a real wall. I feel a bit click baited here.

Also, they prepared the polystyrene wall to break this cartoonishly, but still played on being surprised.

[-] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee -1 points 1 month ago

Yeah, do YTers not have the money to kill one Tesla?
That seemed like an expensive production, sadly one totaled car couldn't make it.

[-] nomy@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 month ago

Should've let WhistlinDiesel "test" it.

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[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The question is could this fool a human

Also I went and watched the video and he doesn't seem to even use full self driving for the wall test

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[-] RalphWolf@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Who the hell is Wile E. Coyote?

Update: I love the downvotes. Look at my username!

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this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
535 points (98.4% liked)

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