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Self-Driving Tesla Crashes into Wall Painted to Look Like a Road… Just Months Before Planned Robotaxi Launch (fuelarc.com)

submitted 13 hours ago by KayLeadfoot@fedia.io to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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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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[–] toddestan@lemm.ee 12 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TheRealKuni@midwest.social 1 points 2 hours ago

LIDAR certainly has enough distance (airplanes use it too)

As I understand it, this is uncommon and mostly used for topological mapping.

Most commercial aircraft use a radar, augmented with a GPS-based terrain map, for their ground proximity warning (EGPWS, “Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System”).

I could be wrong though, I’m not a pilot.