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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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 25 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

EPA is going to investigate him for criminal fraud on Monday, I reckon.

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[–] Corno@lemm.ee 17 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)
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[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 38 points 20 hours ago

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

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 264 points 1 day ago (4 children)

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

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 77 points 1 day ago

TIL Mark Rober is a domestic terrorist

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

[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 171 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It got fucking wile e coyoted

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 84 points 1 day ago

The scientists in Ireland calling their data set to prevent this exact fucking thing "Coyote" sent me over the moon.

[–] mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Taking a guess here, but I think Mark Rober is not a big trump/musk fan? :D

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[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 75 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] jet@hackertalks.com 133 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)
[–] Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 8 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

I’m kinda confident that even RADAR + cameras was good enough, but they started shipping cars without it and even shutting off the RADAR in existing cars.

The main negative about LiDAR is the cost, but that’s quickly going down.

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[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 100 points 1 day ago (12 children)

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

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[–] Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 108 points 1 day ago (3 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 149 points 1 day ago (9 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".

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 90 points 1 day ago (6 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 78 points 1 day ago (14 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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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 100 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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

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[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 27 points 23 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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[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 12 points 20 hours ago (8 children)

To be fair, I'd be surprised if half the humans driving didn't do the same.

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[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 12 points 20 hours ago

Tesla is trash.

Fuck Elon musk.

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