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!
Entire video is worth watching. He also snuck a chest mounted lidar into Disney and mapped some rides.
I read something a while back from a guy while wearing a T-shirt with a stop sign on it, a couple robotaxies stopped in front of him. It got me thinking you could cause some chaos walking around with a speed limit 65 shirt.
They’re not reading speed limit signs; they’ll follow the speed limit noted on the reference maps, like what you see in the app on your phone.
There’s a lot of cars that check via camera too to double check, for missing/outdated information and for temporary speed limit signs.
Where I live there are a lot of “temporary” 30km/h speed limits that were never removed by the road workers after the work was completed.
Lots of places also have variable limit signs that get updated based on traffic, accidents etc.
Here in NZ those seem to all be marked on the speed limit maps as 100km/h even if in some places the signs never go above 80.
Ngauranga Gorge is one such location and I believe has the country’s highest grossing speed camera.
Yikes, there’s a 25 around here that shows up as a 55 in Google Maps.
Also a 55 that goes down to I think 35 for just a moment when it joins up with a side road. I wonder what a Tesla would do if it was following that data.
The same thing a Tesla always does: behave erratically and dangerously.
Teslas did this in the past. There was also the issue of thinking that the moon was a red light or something.
Or when a truck is moving traffic lights
That’s almost as bad as Sidewinder missiles locking onto the sun.
To be fair, it is really hot…
So don’t delay, act now, missiles are running out. Allow, if you’re still alive, six to eight years to arrive. And if you follow, there may be a tomorrow, but if the offer’s shunned, you might as well be locking on the sun.
Nice.
I think one of my favorite examples was using simple salt to trap them within the confines of white lines that they didn’t think they could cross over. I really appreciate the imagery of using salt circles to entrap the robotic demons …
Turns out having radar is rather important…
It’s dirt cheap, too. If this was a cost-cutting measure, it was a thoroughly idiotic one. Which feels like the mark… of a certain someone I can think of
New stuff to add to the car kit bag for the 21st century
- poster board to block usonic weapons
- black paint, white paint, roller, brush to paint tunnels on walls
- orange cones to pen in self driving cars
And a “Yikes!” sign 🤣
So its road runner rules in play here.
A genius :-)
My vacuum would pass that test… why is a Tesla worse at this?
This
In short because Elon (wrongly) believes you only need cameras, he made the claim people also drive with just 2 eyes.
The thing is, we recognize a truck with stickers of a stopsign, while AI vision gets confused.
Waymo (Googles self driving side hussle) was build on lidar and other sensors and has been using robot taxis for many years now in geofenced specific areas.
The thing is, we recognize a truck with stickers of a stopsign, while AI vision gets confused.
Lmao would it be illegal to put a stop sign on the back of your car?
I was thinking the same thing. What would happen if you popped one out of the back of your car while driving in front of a self driving car on the freeway?
Some school buses have a sticker / sign on the back that says “I stop for railroad crossings” and can have a stop sign on said sticker.
The funny thing is, apparently our depth perception, a product of our two eyes, is a feature beyond the reach of tesla. And it would have allowed to to complete this test.
I wish all MAGAs a very DEI
Wow you guys even lost the ability to do syntax. I guess it was only a matter of time.
Not only can the right still not meme, it has apparently also lost all ability to recognize meme.
do syntax
Ironic phrase.
And that’s what you get for cheaping out on tech and going with cameras over lidar. Not only that, but Tesla removed all the radar technology that literally every car uses for collision detection about a year ago.
The radar module on my truck costs $70.
The richest man on earth doesn’t think the lives of your vehicle’s passengers are worth $17.50 a pop.
And that’s to a knuckledragger like me, buying a single radar unit online. I’m sure the manufacturer gets insane quantity discounts.
The actual wall is way more convincing though.
still, this should be something the car ought to take into account. What if there’s a glass in the way?
Yes, I think a human driver who isn’t half asleep would notice that something is weird, and would at least slow down.
That might have been an even „simpler“ test.
Yes, but Styrofoam probably damages the car less than shards of glass.
Glass is far more likely to cause injuries to the driver or the people around the set, just from being heavier material than styrofoam.
Glass would be very interesting, might actually confuse lidar also.
As much as i want to hate on tesla, seeing this, it hardly seems like a fair test.
From the perspective of the car, it’s almost perfectly lined up with the background. it’s a very realistic painting, and any AI that is trained on image data would obviously struggle with this. AI doesn’t have that human component that allows us to infer information based on context. We can see the boarders and know that they dont fit. They shouldn’t be there, so even if the painting is perfectly lines up and looks photo realistic, we can know something is up because its got edges and a frame holding it up.
This test, in the context of the title of this article, relies on a fairly dumb pretense that:
- Computers think like humans
- This is a realistic situation that a human driver would find themselves in (or that realistic paintings of very specific roads exist in nature)
- There is no chance this could be trained out of them. (If it mattered enough to do so)
This doesnt just affect teslas. This affects any car that uses AI assistance for driving.
Having said all that… fuck elon musk and fuck his stupid cars.
This doesnt just affect teslas. This affects any car that uses AI assistance for driving.
Except for, you know… cars that don’t solely rely on optical input and have LiDAR for example
Fair point. But it doesn’t address the other things i said, really.
But i suppose,based on already getting downvoted, that I’ve got a bad take, either that or people who are downvoting me dont understand i can hate tesla and elon, think their cars are shit and still see that tests like this can be nuanced. The attitude that paints with a broad brush is the type of attitude that got trump elected…
based on already getting downvoted
In this case, yes, but in general, downvotes just mean your take is unpopular. The downvotes could be from people who don’t like Tesla and see any defense of Tesla as worthy of downvotes.
So good on you for making the point that you believe in. It’s good to try to understand why something you wrote was downvoted instead of just knee-jerk assuming that it’s because it’s a “bad take.”
No, it’s just a bad take. Every other manufacturer of self driving vehicles (even partial self driving, like automatic braking) uses LiDAR because it solves a whole host of problems like this. Only Tesla doesn’t, because Elon thinks he’s a big brain genius. There have been plenty of real world accidents with less cartoonish circumstances involving Teslas that also would have been avoided if they just had LiDAR sensors. Mark just chose an especially flashy way to illustrate the problem. Sometimes flashy is the best way to get a point across.
I agree the wall is convincing and that it’s not surprising that the Tesla didn’t detect it, but I think where your comment rubs the wrong way is that you seem to be letting Tesla off the hook for making a choice to use the wrong technology.
I think you and the article/video agree on the point that any car based only on images will struggle with this but the conclusion you drew is that it’s an unfair test while the conclusion should be that NO car should rely only on images.
Is this situation likely to happen in the real world? No. But that doesn’t make the test unfair to Tesla. This was an intentional choice they made and it’s absolutely fair to call them on dangers of that choice.
That’s fair.
I didn’t intend to give tesla a pass. I hoped that qualifying what i said with a “fuck tesla and fuck elon” would show that.
But i didn’t think about it that way.
In my defense my point was more about saying “what did you expect” the car to do in a test designed to show how a system that is not designed to perform a specific function cant perform that specific function.
We know that self driving is bullshit, especially the tesla brand of it. So what is Mark’s test and video really doing?
But on reflection, i guess there are still a lot of people out there that dont know this stuff, so at the very least, a popular channel like his will go a longway to raising awareness of this sort of flaw.
I am fairly dumb. Like, I am both dumb and I am fair-handed.
But, I am not pretentious!
So, let’s talk about your points and the title. You said I had fairly dumb pretenses, let’s talk through those.
- The title of the article… there is no obvious reason to think that I think computers think like humans, certainly not from that headline. Why do you think that?
- There are absolutely realistic situations exactly like this, not a pretense. Don’t think Loony Tunes. Think 18 wheeler with a realistic photo of a highway depicted on the side, or a billboard with the same. The academic article where 3 PhD holding engineering types discuss the issue at length, which is linked in my article. This is accepted by peer-reviewed science and has been for years.
- Yes, I agree. That’s not a pretense, that’s just… a factually correct observation. You can’t train an AI to avoid optical illusions if its only sensor input is optical. That’s why the Tesla choice to skip LiDAR and remove radar is a terminal case of the stupids. They’ve invested in a dead-end sensor suite, as evidenced by their earning the title of Most Lethal Car Brand on the Road.
This does just impact Teslas, because they do not use LiDAR. To my knowledge, they are the only popular ADAS in the American market that would be fooled by a test like this.
Near as I can tell, you’re basically wrong point by point here.
Excuse me.
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Did you write the article? I genuinely wasn’t aiming my comment at you. It was merely commentary on the context that is inferred by the title. I just watched a clip of the car hitting the board. I didn’t read the article, so i specified that i was referring to the article title. Not the author, not the article itself. Because it’s the title that i was commenting on.
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That wasn’t an 18 wheeler, it was a ground level board with a photorealistic picture that matched the background it was set up against. It wasnt a mural on a wall, or some other illusion with completely different properties. So no, i think this extremely specific set up for this test is unrealistic and is not comparable to actual scientific research, which i dont dispute. I dont dispute the fact that the lack of LiDAR is why teslas have this issue and that an autonomous driving system with only one type of sensor is a bad one. Again. I said i hate elon and tesla. Always have.
All i was saying is that this test, which is designed in a very specific way and produces a very specific result, is pointless. Its like me getting a bucket with a hole in and hypothesising that if i pour in waterz it will leak out of the hole, and then proving that and saying look! A bucket with a hole in leaks water…
Y’all excused, don’t sweat it! I sure did write the article you did not read. No worries, reading bores me sometimes, too.
Your take is one of the sillier opinions that I’ve come across in a minute. I won’t waste any more time explaining it to you than that. The test does not strike informed individuals as pointless.
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I dodnt not read it because “reading bores me.” i didn’t read it because i was busy. I have people round digging up my driveway, i have a 7 week old baby and a 5 year old son destroying the house :p i have prep for work and i just did a bit of browsing and saw the post. Felt compelled to comment for a brief break.
Im not sure what you mean by “silly opinion.” Everyone who has been arguing with me has been stating that everyone knows that teslas dont use LiDAR, and thats why this test failed. If everyone knows this, then why did it need proving. It was a pointless test. Did you know: fire is hot and water is wet? Did you know we need to breathe air to live?
No?
Better make an elaborate test, film it, edit the video, make it last long enough to monetise, post it to youtube, and let people write articles about it to post to other websites. All to prove what everyone already knows about a dangerous self driving car that’s been around for 11 years…
I am sorry, i just dont get it. I felt like I was pointing out the obvious in saying that a test that’s tailored to give a specific result, which we already know the result of, is a farcical test. It’s pointless.
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I agree that this just isn’t a realistic problem, and that there are way more problems with Tesla’s that are much more realistic.
Tell that to the guy who lost his head when his Tesla thought a reflective semi truck was the sky
A camera will show it as being more convincing than it is. It would be way more obvious in real life when seen with two eyes. These kinds of murals are only convincing from one specific point.
…and clearly this photo wasn’t the point. In fact, it looks like a straight road from one of the camera angles he chooses later, not afaict from the pov of the car
That’s true, but it’s still way more understandable that a car without lidar would be fooled by it. And there is no way you would ever come into such a situation, whereas the image in the thumbnail, could actually happen. That’s why it’s so misleading, can people not see that?
I absolutely hate Elon Musk and support boycott of Tesla and Starlink, but this is a bit too misleading even with that in mind.So, your comment got me thinking… surely, in a big country like the US of A, this mural must actually exist already, right?
Of course it does. It is an art piece in Columbia, S.C: https://img.atlasobscura.com/90srIbBi-XX-H9u6i_RykKIinRXlpclCHtk-QPSHixk/rt:fit/w:1200/q:80/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL3BsYWNl/X2ltYWdlcy85ZTUw/M2ZkZDAxZjVhN2Rm/NmVfOTIyNjQ4NjQ0/OF80YWVhNzFkZjY0/X3ouanBn.webp
A full article about it: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tunnelvision
How would Tesla FSD react to Tunnelvision, I wonder? How would Tesla FSD react to an overturned semi truck with a realistic depiction of a highway on it? JK, Tesla FSD crashes directly into overturned semis even without the image depiction issue.
I don’t think the test is misleading. It’s puffed up for entertainment purposes, but in being puffed up, it draws attention to an important drawback of optical-only self-driving cars, which is otherwise a difficult and arcane topic to draw everyday people’s attention to.
Good find, I must say I’m surprised that’s legal, but it’s probably more obvious in reality, and it has the sun which is probably also pretty obvious to a human.
But it might fool the Tesla?Regarding the semi video: WTF?
But I’ve said for years that Tesla cars aren’t safe for roads. And that’s not just the FSD, they are inherently unsafe in many really really stupid ways.
Blinker buttons on the steering wheel. Hidden emergency door handles, emergency breaking for no reason. Distracting screen interface. In Denmark 30% of Tesla 3 fail their first 4 year safety check.
There have been stats publicized that claim they aren’t worse than other cars, when in fact “other cars” were an average of 10 year older. So the newer cars obviously ought to be safer because they should be in better conditions.
I’m so glad I wasn’t the only person who immediately thought “This is some Wile E. Coyote shit.”
I mean, it is also referenced in the article and even in the summary from OP.
And extensively in the video too.
Beep beep! Damn things are using ACME LiDAR!
Actually elon demanded that lidar be depricated because of phantom breaking years ago, they only use visible spectrum cameras now
It wasn’t because of phantom braking.
It was to cut costs.It was because covid interrupted supply chains. Same reason they removed lumbar support from passenger seats.
This is why it’s fucking stupid Tesla removed Lidar sensors and relies on cameras only.
But also who would want a tesla, fuck em
They also removed radar, which is what allowed them to make all of those “it saw something three vehicles ahead and braked to avoid a pileup that hadn’t even started yet” videos. Removing radar was the single most impactful change Tesla made in regards to FSD, and it’s all because Musk basically decided “people drive fine with just their eyes, so cars should too.”
I was horrified when I learned that the autopilot relies entirely on cameras. Nope, nope, nope.
Leon said other sensors were unnecessary because human driving is all done through the sense of sight…proving that he has no idea how humans work either (despite purportedly being a human).
They never had lidarr. They used to have radar and uss but they decided “vision” was good enough. This conveniently occurred when they had supply chain issues during covid.
There’s a very simple solution to this. BUILD MORE TRAINS!
Show someone footage of 9/11 and they‘ll think of 2001. Show someone footage of a burning or crashing Tesla 20 years from now and they‘ll think of 2025.
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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You can’t sue me for my driverless car that drops caltrops, forcing everyone else to take the train.
I’ve said for a while that you could shut down an entire city with just a few buddies and like $200 in drywall screws. Have each friend drive on a different highway (or in a different direction on each highway) and sprinkle drywall screws as they go. Not just like a single dump, but a good consistent scatter so the entire highway is a minefield and takes hours to properly sweep up.
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