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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[–] Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 104 points 18 hours ago (35 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.

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 61 points 18 hours 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 :)

[–] ArchAengelus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 11 hours ago

Front-facing radar is the bare minimum needed to pass the test given (fake-road wall). Many vehicles use it for adaptive cruise control, and radar is even faster than either cameras or lidar for figuring out the range to an object. 1000 Hz measuring distance to an object is enough to find both the relative velocity and the acceleration of another object. This provides enough time to apply the brakes safely when approaching a vehicle or obstacle

LIDAR is even better, and also more compute intensive and expensive to install.

I think Tesla was very short-sighted in removing radar sensors, certainly. If they hadn’t, they could’ve spent more of their energy on making the FSD cars better instead of just making them sufficiently safe with insufficient sensors

[–] vin@lemmynsfw.com 24 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (7 children)

Forget lidar, they don't even have mature tech like radar for emergency braking. Edit: +even

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[–] jet@hackertalks.com 125 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (9 children)
[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 92 points 19 hours ago (6 children)

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

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 9 hours ago

"But humans can do it with their eyes!"

The thing is, RADAR can see things humans can't. There was a whole article a while back about a Model X that avoided an otherwise unavoidable accident by bouncing radar under the car in front of it and seeing that car slam on the brakes.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 33 points 19 hours ago (3 children)
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[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 30 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

The day I heard that was the day I realized he's a fucking idiot and I wanted nothing to do with his cars/tech.

Judging by how things have turned out...damn was that a good decision lmao

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 9 hours ago

They pulled the RADAR from mine just before I took delivery, unbeknownst to me at the time. I received no sort of notification.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 10 hours ago

Wonderful news.

[–] blackluster117@sh.itjust.works 50 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Still think LIDAR is inferior to computer vision, Elon?

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[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

They sound like they’re perfect for red states

[–] cmhe@lemmy.world 21 points 17 hours ago (8 children)

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.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I’m a bit disappointed they painted identical to the actual road. Probably a lot of humans will get fooled by that one. We should send a challenge back: how looney toons can you get? Will something more cartoonish fool it? Will a different landscape fool it? How about drawing an oncoming train?

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[–] Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

The war against AI will be fought with Looney Tunes bits.

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[–] regrub@lemmy.world 34 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

I would say that it's a good idea to paint more tunnels on walls, but then I remember how dumb human drivers are too

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