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!
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.
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.
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.
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…