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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[–] rational_lib 63 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (8 children)

The rain test was far more concerning because it's much more realistic of a scenario. Both a normal person and the lidar would've seen the kid and stopped, but the cameras and image processing just isn't good enough to make out a person in the rain. That's bad. The test portrays it as a person in the middle of a straight road, but I don't see why the same thing wouldn't happen at a crosswalk or other place where pedestrians are often in the path of a vehicle. If an autonomous system cannot make out pedestrians in the rain reliably, that alone should be enough to prevent these vehicles from being legal.

[–] PlaidBaron 25 points 23 hours ago

Who owns the White House right now?

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[–] King3d 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is like the crash on a San Francisco bridge that happened because of a Tesla that went into a tunnel and it wasn’t sure what to do since it went from bright daylight to darkness. In this case the Tesla just suddenly merged lanes and then immediately stopped and caused a multi car pile up.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You'd think they have cameras with higher dynamic range and faster auto exposure in their cars by now. Nope, still penny pinching.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If only elon hadn't insisted on not using lidar or anything other than just visible light cameras

[–] [email protected] 13 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Yeah, pulling radar from the cars was the beginning of the end. Early teslas had radar, and that was what led to all of the “car sees something three vehicles ahead and brakes to avoid a pileup that hasn’t even started yet” type of collision avoidance videos. First, pulling radar was a cost cutting thing. Then Elon demanded that they pull out the lidar too, and that’s when their crash numbers skyrocketed.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

They never had lidar, as far as I know.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

The video literally shows it having lidar tho.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Delta_V 12 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

But why was there a road there?

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[–] fubarx 48 points 1 day ago (15 children)

There's a very simple solution to autonomous driving vehicles plowing into walls, cars, or people:

Congress will pass a law that makes NOBODY liable -- as long as a human wasn't involved in the decision making process during the incident.

This will be backed by car makers, software providers, and insurance companies, who will lobby hard for it. After all, no SINGLE person or company made the decision to swerve into oncoming traffic. Surely they can't be held liable. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Once that happens, Level 4 driving will come standard and likely be the default mode on most cars. Best of luck everyone else!

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 21 hours ago

A fitting metaphor for Musky and their involvement with the US government.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Mark Rober is about to be listed as FBI public enemy #1 :(

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[–] [email protected] 275 points 1 day ago (5 children)

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

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[–] pjwestin 39 points 1 day ago

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

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 day ago

TIL Mark Rober is a domestic terrorist

[–] Iheartcheese 176 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It got fucking wile e coyoted

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Who the hell is Wyle E. Coyote?

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago

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

[–] [email protected] 138 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (26 children)
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[–] Sterile_Technique 78 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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