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!
To be fair, I’d be surprised if half the humans driving didn’t do the same.
this. watching the video, I had some trouble telling the difference. sure, from some angles it is obvious, but from others it is not.
That said, other cars, with more types of sensors, would probably have “seen” the obstruction on the road.
Well yeah, that’s sort of the entire point of the video. He ran the test with a lidar-equipped vehicle, and it saw the wall right away. Hell, a radar-equipped car (like early teslas) probably would have seen the “kid” behind the wall as well. But since Musk has decided that cars should be able to self-drive with only cameras, the newer teslas will just plow straight into the wall without braking.
I would have liked to see how a more typical car with automatic cruise control /braking functioned. I think they use ultra sonic sensors and would have done better than the Tesla.
I think the human brain hasthe edge in processing visuals since out brains are so much better at adapting than any computer system. We can improvise much better since we have our whole life experience to draw on.