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!
OMFG someone test to see if Teslas stop to eat free bird seed.
Meep meep!
So many Acme products we need to test, I saw one guy already successfully tested an Olmec statue.
Clearly we don’t need lidar!
Direct video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJL3htsDyQ
“But humans can do it with their eyes!” - says the man not selling a human brain to go with the optical sensors
“But humans can do it with their eyes!”
That’s the best part, they kinda can’t.
There are videos from before they pulled the sensors of some pretty cool stuff where teslas slammed the breaks before anything visibly happened, based on lidar sensors sensing trouble a couple cars up the road, completely blocked to vision.super cool safety tech, and then they pulled it…
one example here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIcC2ZMePKI
Pretty sure that wasn’t even lidar. It was radar which is even cheaper and pretty much every other new car has if they don’t have lidar.
Don’t give him ideas!!!
On the internet, nobody knows you’re just a brain in a
jarcar.
The thing is, yes humans can do it with their eyes. But even with the giant amount of progressing power from the brain they are still not great at it.
So of the ultimate goal is to the minimum/cheapest to be almost as good as human then yes, optical sensors only are enough.
Of the goal is to prevent deaths and significantly reduce the number of accidents compared to then lidar is the best option.
Very interesting!
What’s the payoff period, I wonder, assuming everyone could afford optical only before everyone could afford better tech.
“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.
I will point out that if you (or your camera-only driver assist) can’t stop without hitting the car in front of you when they slam on the breaks, then you’re driving too close to them… You really shouldn’t ever put yourself in a position where the person in front of you could cause you to unavoidably hit them.
That said… Yeah, radar/lidar are far better than camera alone and there’s no good reason not to include them in the sensor suite unless you value profits over lives.
And I will point out that if the car in front of you isn’t paying attention and rams a stopped car in the middle of the road, you are fucked no matter what.
Not if you have the following distance to stop, but point taken: a crash decelerates you faster than breaks can and typical following distances are assuming breaking distance, not hard sudden halts.
So increase your following distance. It also has the benefit that it makes it easier to see what’s ahead of the car in front of you.
There’s pretty much no accident that’s unavoidable (barring someone else plowing into you) if you drive defensively enough (assuming good traction and good breaks, but obviously you should increase your following or decrease your speed to compensate for that as well)
Not if you have the following distance to stop
Maintaining a stopping distance like that is nigh impossible in a dense urban area. You’d be constantly cut off and causing tons of traffic.
Really? I do it pretty frequently without issue…
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.
Why did they shut off radar?
They don’t want to install it in the newer cars, and they don’t want to make two software versions I guess. A backup would’ve been great though…
Thank you!
I tried watching it and it forces a horrible dubbing over it so I didn’t want to watch it. Apparently only way to chage it is to change my whole youtube account language
for the youtube website interface click on the gear wheel, and you can select the audiotrack you want
Yes, but not possible on mobile
I don’t know if it’s somehow not available to everyone, but I am able to change the audio track on mobile.
TIL Mark Rober is a domestic terrorist
I love that one of the largest YouTubers is the one that did this. Surely, somebody near our federal government will throw a hissy fit if he hears about this but Mark’s audience is ginormous
Honestly I think Mark should be more scared of Disney coming after him for mapping out their space mountain ride.
He probably just made Disney admissions and security even more annoying for everyone else.
Still think LIDAR is inferior to computer vision, Elon?
That was never in question, they just went with cameras because they’re dirt cheap compared to lidar.
Yes, because cameras are cheaper.
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!
Kids already have experience playing hopscotch, so we can just have them jump between the rooves of moving cars in order to cross the street! It will be so much more efficient, and they can pretend that they are action heroes. The ones who survive will make for great athletes too.
Once that happens, Level 4 driving will come standard
Uhhhh absolutely not. They would abandon it first.
If no one is liable then it’s tempting to deliberately confuse them to crash
deliberately confuse them to crash
Won’t the people doing that be committing attempted murder?
Self driving cars don’t need to have anyone on board
Ask the KIA boys how much they care about murder charges.
+1…a classic!
According to Ol’ Elon the robo-taxi service has been a couple months away since 2017 or so. I can’t imagine it’s much closer now than then.
It’s right at the end of the tunnel they’re diggin in CA
I think Rober just showed us why. Mowing down kids in weather is an unacceptable amount of risk.
Unacceptable risk to you. I’m guessing Elon is fully prepared to take the risk and minimise the consequences.
Even Leon Skum has to deal with insurance companies, for now.
Very surprised Mark isn’t… Super supportive of musk and Tesla.
He owns a Tesla and is rather wealthy at this point. Not to mention that he’s Mormon. I’d expect him to be very conservative and all in on the grift.
(Edit: Ope, I think I misunderstood you, my bad. Disregard my reply.)
What a world we’re living in!
Observing a technical deficiency in a robotics platform requires political considerations. Even when a car drives into a fucking wall at 40MPH on camera, people are asking about the camera man’s political party affiliation and not what’s wrong with the car.
Wild!
Unfortunately when the vehicle in question is created by a company owned by a man operating a government agency, it’s a valid question. He could have just never made the video, but making one that directly opposes the narrative of people you’d expect the “camera man’s” political affiliation to be seems unusual.
Can’t deny any of that.
Have I mentioned, I’m broadly surprised by how reasonable the conversations are here versus Reddit? Thanks for that, I think I misunderstood your initial comment
out the camera man’s political party affiliation and not what’s wrong with the car.
We know what’s wrong with the car. He was very clear about it. We mostly should have known it was coming.
I actually think the Tesla could be trained to stop for this, they certainly never trained it to detect this. As you get closer the perspective changes. it’s slight, but probably fine for algo detection.
As far as political considerations, the REAL wild part is the actions of the current administration at less than 100 days in. It’s difficult not to see things through the lense when the guy at the top is trying to dismantle the pardons of the previous president of people who weren’t charged with crimes, while he pardoned the silk road guy.
Literally, every news-worthy action is peppered with politics now due to the incomprehensible actions at the top.
While Rober is officially non-committal to a political agenda:
He clearly and repeatedly supports education (this should not be a telling political statement)
He has created videos highlighting the importance of mental health and creativity, encouraging viewers to embrace their unique talents. (this should not be a telling political statement)
His projects often promote inclusivity and accessibility, making science and technology more approachable for diverse audiences. (this should not be a telling political statement)
NONE of these should be a telling political statement. Education should be paramount. Diversity should not be a political statement.
The current administration doing WHITE POWER SALUTES ON STAGE, shutting down education and REMOVING BLACK SERVICEMEN from the public internet are EXACTLY the kinds of things required to make all THIS a political statement.
Mark is a smart guy, I’m sure he walks great big circles around anything political, at least publicly.
His audience is everybody, aligning publicly with any kind of political flow is generally a bad idea if you want that to stay that way, because the only thing you’ll likely achieve is shrinking your potential audience.
I would also be careful with the assumption that all conservatives agree with what’s currently happening.
I’d expect him to be very conservative
We still don’t know for sure. That video will likely become one of, if not his top-grossing videos. The topic and timeliness are absolute fire.
I give him some credit, though. It’s a dicey time to throw Musk under the self-driving bus while showing that alternatives don’t have the same problem.
But why was there a road there?
He also painted the line leading up to it, if I remember the gag correctly. The real road is off camera.
To any artists in Austin,TX: you have your work cut out for you. Godspeed.
Meep meep.
The war against AI will be fought with Looney Tunes bits.
“If you’re hearing this, you are the MEEP MEEP!”
Hopefully next an anvil lands on musks head
Mark Rober is about to be listed as FBI public enemy #1 :(
EPA is going to investigate him for criminal fraud on Monday, I reckon.
Didn’t they dismantle them on Thursday?
