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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[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago

Tesla is trash.

Fuck Elon musk.

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

[–] elatedCatfish@lemm.ee 3 points 3 hours ago

New Trump-Hitman challenge unlocked

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

can someone do this to trumps tesla please

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[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

They sound like they’re perfect for red states

[–] kane@femboys.biz 7 points 5 hours ago (8 children)

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.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 hours ago

Wonderful news.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 66 points 9 hours ago

TIL Mark Rober is a domestic terrorist

[–] arankays@lemmy.ca 18 points 8 hours ago (2 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 10 points 5 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.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 hours ago (4 children)

waymo's have almost hit me like three times, and if i were slower, they would have. you are part of the problem. those are killing machines.

[–] dan@lemmy.i.secretponi.es -2 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

I'm surrounded by waymos every time I go out and I can tell you that if they "almost hit you" three times then that's very likely a you problem -- and a reason for more waymos, not fewer.

Anecdotally, only once have I been in a situation where I've said, "do better, robot" because I was slightly inconvenienced by it.

By the numbers there are very few waymo incidents compared to human drivers and those include waymos being hit by bicyclists who aren't paying attention.

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[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 76 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 13 points 7 hours ago

Im glad Luigi & Wile are on the same side.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 237 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

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

[–] GratefullyGodless@lemmy.world 90 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 146 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It got fucking wile e coyoted

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[–] Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 99 points 12 hours ago (11 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 140 points 12 hours ago (6 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".

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 24 points 8 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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[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 87 points 11 hours ago (4 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 71 points 11 hours ago (13 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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[–] chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

That should tell you just how vastly complicated driving is.

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[–] Undaunted@feddit.org 22 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

That statement of him is not entirely wrong. But we humans have a very powerful bio computer that is perfectly tuned to process those visual inputs in realtime. Until a comparable performance is possible, removing LIDAR is very stupid.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 13 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Besides that, in the fog and rain tests a human likely would have killed a kid anyway, and why settle for human limitations when you could be safer?

We absolutely should also have lidar or analogous tech as part of a solution here, even if cameras did manage to get to human level safety.

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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 93 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 17 points 8 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.

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 13 points 8 hours ago

This is true. There never was LIDAR.

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[–] jet@hackertalks.com 115 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (16 children)
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