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!
Apparently they keep getting tickets in China because they didn’t bother to adjust the settings to accommodate Chinese roads and traffic laws. Result is Tesla is getting utterly crushed by BYD in their one major market that doesn’t care about Elon’s antics.
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 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.
I was horrified when I learned that the autopilot relies entirely on cameras. Nope, nope, nope.
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.”
Is this video being suppressed by the YouTube algorithm? I wonder if it’s because of Tesla or Disney. Or maybe it’s because of simulated child harm?
There’s a very simple solution to this. BUILD MORE TRAINS!
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!
These same laws will be grandfathered in for ai. This way your health insurance companies computer can murder you by denying care and nobody can be held civilly or criminally liable.
You can’t sue me for my driverless car that drops caltrops, forcing everyone else to take the train.
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Don’t want to rock the boat but apart from being a you tube money earner this doesn’t prove or disprove anything. A lot of humans would be fooled by this also.
I am suspicious of the way the polystyrene wall broke in cartoon like shagged edges, almost like they were precut.
The point of the test is to demonstrate that vision-only, which Tesla has adopted is inadequate. A car with lidar or radar would have been able to “see” that the car was approaching an obstacle without being fooled by the imagary.
So yes, it seems a bit silly, but the underlying point is legitimate. If the software is fooled by this, then can you ever fully trust it? Especially when sensor systems exist that don’t have this problem at all. Would you want to be a pedestrian in a crosswalk with this car bearing down on you in FSD?
What would the wall being precut have to do with the car deciding to drive through it?
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.
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.
Mark Rober’s video of the six tests (the remaining section is about mapping Space Mountain as Mark wanted to do since he was a kid)
Absolutely hilarious.
Well, I guess we know how to defeat Teslas.
Was there a coyote or a roadrunner anywhere nearby?
Yes, they do feature.
Who was the idiot that removed LiDar to cut costs?
/s
They are so expensive too! /s
Who would have known electronics gets cheaper all the time?? /j
Except GPUs 😥
Elon removed the radar. Tesla cars never had lidar. What an idiot Musk.
Tesla had camera+radar+sonar, and that wasn’t their own tech - they used mobileye EyeQ back then. When they switched to in house tech they gradually ditched the radar and sonar which made no sense to me. But at the time I saw their lead say in an interview that this is superior and I believed. not anymore.
they said doing so cut costs but obviously lidar/radar/sonar only gets cheaper over time, let alone the extra r&d costs because a vision only system is much more difficult to develop.
It was removed because it was giving false positives. They should have upgraded it with lidar but decided to just remove it.
It was removed because of supply chain issues.
Yeah, it might drive straight into a wall but at least it isn’t returning false positives!
He did say lidar was “useless” though.
He’s said humans don’t use LiDAR so his cars shouldn’t have to. Of course humans have a brain, and he’s cars don’t, but you can’t tell him anything.
Human drivers also make automobiles one of the most dangerous ways to travel.
I think it’s also reasonable to say a human dying because of their own actions is different than a human dying because a big corp cut costs on safety features in an entirely autonomous car where the human has no ability to stop what’s happening. (You can control them in current teslas, but they’re working on cars without human controls as well)
He also said the government doesn’t use sql.
Bahaha, what kind of a bizarre statement is that?
Was he trying to imply the government only uses spreadsheets and nosql DBs?
Or did he think it was necessary to point out that your average government employee isn’t writing their own SQL to grab data they need?
Someone said something he didn’t like so he blurted out the first ignorant thing that he thought of, as usual.
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This is a very good test, and the car should have past. That said though, I hate the click bait format where they show a stupidly obvious cartoonish wall, when the real wall is way more convincing.
The Video:
That sort of clickbait is 100% sure to get a “do not recommend channel” from me, I’m so sick of it. And it’s sad when the video has such a good point.
The Clickbait
I can see it’s kind of funny, but it’s misleading.
Well if your thumbnail is not good enough and catchy people will not watch it. Which wont make the channel profitable. Which will cause it to not exist.
I hope you know that usually youtubers will not even start making the video if they don’t have a killer thumbnail to it. Thats the platform.
You realize Mark Robers target audience is like 8 years old, right? He also references looney tunes and wile e coyote a couple dozen times, including in this thumbnail you’re losing your mind over. The thumbnail fits the theme very well if you ask me.
This video isn’t a rigorous scientific test. This is a children’s video designed to get them interested in the scientific method. Get over yourself.
IMO it doesn’t need to be a rigorous scientific test, it’s not trying to prove something works as it should under all conditions. It’s showing the exact opposite, it does not work under this one condition, which is more than enough to disprove the safety of the car.
Why would children be interested in car safety?
My 6 year old kid loves anything about car and enjoyed Marks video. While driving him from school, he asked me why we can tell it’s a wall but the cars can’t. It sparked a 20 minutes discussion on car safety and why we need seat belts.
While driving him from school, he asked me why we can tell it’s a wall but the cars can’t.
Cool inquisitive kid you have there. 👍 😀
Why would children be interested in anything?
Have you never seen educational content before that wraps up potentially boring teachings in an exciting narrative?
Since most grownups aren’t interested in safety, I just thought it would be even less for kids.
All sales promotion stats show that car buyers basically don’t care about safety features. Almost all significant safety features are there because of regulation.Edit:
I can only laugh at the downvoters, you know nothing. It’s been a well established fact that safety doesn’t sell cars since the 50’s.Seems like a strange application of stats when, as you say, the regulated safety features - the important ones - need not come into a decision-making process and advertising them would be a waste of time.
Including the horrible angle of headrests these days. You’re right though: nobody gives a shit about the extra safety features.
Oh wow, you really didn’t realize? Yeah man this is a youtube channel for getting kids interested in science and technology, like the technology surrounding self driving cars and lidar. Did you see the part where he introduced the technology by taking it to Disney world?
Here’s a random video from crunchlabs, the company he created and advertises on ALL of his videos. This video shows his fan base enjoying what they got from crunchlabs.
That’s cool then, but probably not for me. And I still think it’s misleading. If they made the analogy in the video it would be different. But as it is, it looks like clickbait. And honestly using clickbait on children is actually worse.
They do make the analogy in the video. They reference it multiple times.
Maybe I didn’t have sound, and that’s not the problem, the problem is the thumbnail for the video is clickbait, I don’t get why I have to repeat that so many times?
I understand the joke of the analogy to cartoons, and it’s perfectly fine they make that in the video.“And I still think it’s misleading. If they made the analogy in the video it would be different.”
I was just responding to your own point, mate. Good news, it is in the video multiple times, even visually referenced multiple times. They even described as a cartoonish test while showing the cartoon wall gag. So, per your own words, should be good to go then, yeah? I mean, you’re arguing with yourself at this point.
Why is anyone interested in anything?
My nephew was obsessed with Teslas a few years ago. I asked him why, his response? The indicators can be set to make fart noises.
My 7 year old daughter and I watch Mark’s videos together and they have helped to spark her interest in engineering & science.
When I was a kid I was extremely interested in junction layouts, it drove my parents mad. Kids like all sorts of random things.
Because they don’t want their friend to die?
To kids, death is just a word.
Kids love cyber trucks, teslas, Ferraris, or any car that is perceived as very expensive
passed
I agree with everything you said.
Thanks. 😎
Then imagine why 15% downvote? I suppose it means they don’t see how it’s misleading?YouTube is always click bait nowadays. There are plenty of that aren’t and have good quality. But everyone I encounter that’s trying to breakout is sensational for the sake of being sensational.
Still astounded people use anything other than the subscription section on YouTube.
That would require signing in and allowing tracking.
History turned off, subscriptions only for me.
We are in a tiny, tiny minority.
You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
If it’s made to be misleading and baiting, yes I FUCKING should. And so should you and everybody else.
How is it misleading?
The title asks “can you fool a self driving car” and the thumbnail illustrates a cartoon situation that immediately explains how they will attempt to do so in the video.
The video then goes on to not only answer the question, but explore the technology involved in-depth.
It MORE than delivers on the “clickbait”.
Thumbnails can’t be subtle, they typically get viewed at a tiny size compared to the full video and that’s why large high-contrast features work better than a random screencap from the video.
YouTubers - especially large channels like this - constantly A/B test with different thumbnails and stick with whatever one drives the most traffic (no pun intended) to the video.
You might not like it, but it’s unfortunately the reality of operating a content creation business on an algorithm-driven platform.
There are plenty of channels I follow that make fantastic videos, but sometimes you have to tolerate the shitty thumbnails because that’s just the reality of the system they’re operating within.
Yeah, that is just how youtube works. You as an individual can say you don’t like annoying thumbnails and titles, but they 100% work. And channels that don’t use them are just not getting as many viewers.
algorithm-driven platform
And what is this “algorithm” based on? Actual user behavior. So the way to correct an algorithm is to change actual user behavior, no?
Lemme know when they release an OTA for our parietal lobes.
That sounds horrifying. :)
Just don’t fall asleep during the update.
Have you heard of DeArrow? https://dearrow.ajay.app/
It’s a browser extension that replaces clickbait thumbnails with good community sourced ones
Still supports a creator pulling clickbait.
The only way is to vote with views/retention.The only way is to vote with views/retention.
Want to guess why they are there in the first place?
I hate it too, but it’s mostly one of those “we can’t have nice things because of other people around us” situations.
But it only supports them if their video is then also good. I don’t like clickbait, because I don’t want to be tricked into my monkey brain looking at something. I do want to see good videos.
Just yesterday the algorithm found some guy doing tech videos. I watched a few of them and then sent a text to a friend who I thought would like it. He asked for a link so I pulled the guys channel up on my phone, and holy smokes, clickbait. If I hadn’t seen the videos already I wouldn’t have given that guy the time of day. But they are well thought out, interesting videos.
I’m not here to correct the world’s poor behaviour. I’m here to watch good videos. De-arrow does a good job of that, it’s quite interesting to see YouTube on a computer without it vs what I’m used to now.
Blame the youtube algorithm and Mr Beast, not all the other youtubers caught up in the tidal wave.
Yeah they do it because it works. I’ve seen several who make otherwise good content talk about it in their videos and make comments about how stupid it is bit they basically have to to be competitive.
I don’t see a problem with thumbnails that accurately portray the contents of the video, since only a small number of characters can fit in the title and a screenshot of one frame from the video doesn’t say much, so it can be difficult to get a sense for the video at a glance otherwise. I do get really annoyed with thumbnails that are deceptive in any way. If the thumbnail seems like it might be deceptive, I’ll usually read the comments before watching the video, or quickly scroll through it to see if it’s BS or not. Sometimes, the thumbnail advertises something that happens at the end of a 20 minute video that could’ve been 30s, in which case, I’ll scroll usually through to the end instead of watching the whole thing. If it weren’t for the thumbnail, though, I might not have watched it all.
yeah but if you share it with people, they’ll still see the clickbait thumbnail, and that’s the actual problem
Thanks no I hadn’t. Is that available as a Firefox extension. I do most of my browsing on desktop.
The link is right there, you could’ve just clicked it instead of taking the time to write this question?!
OK I see it now, a bunch of icons I usually glance over, because such “icon lines” are generally for a bunch of social media crap I don’t use.
Apparently it’s proprietary crap, so no thanks anyway.
https://github.com/ajayyy/DeArrow
https://sponsor.ajay.app/databaseThis (again) is from the link in the comment you replied to…
Your attitude really doesn’t work well with your lack of reading comprehension.6 hour trial, sounds like proprietary to me.
Privacy Note: Other than intially checking your license key, no requests to DeArrow servers contain your license key.
Now please stop trying to sell this to me, I’m not interested in it anymore.
Edit: I just read the entire text, and it is actually very reasonable, I just caught the license key thing together with the payment option. It’s actually even cheap, so maybe I’ll consider it.
You cannot be serious?! Are you trolling?
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First of all, something not being free (as in gratis) does not mean it is proprietary per se.
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Second of all, your reading comprehension failed you again:
However, if you cannot, or do not want to pay, you can click the button at the bottom to use DeArrow for free. No worries if you can’t or don’t want to pay :)
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The link is in the comment you replied to.
How exactly were you not able to see that?Sorry, I mixed up 2 threads.
Yes, but you could have just clicked the link to find that out
The link in a comment that wasn’t for me? Like I update every 10 minutes to read all the comments??
Get real will you.Imagine being in the middle of a friendly conversation where you ask a question and the person says, “Why are you asking me?? Just google it.”
Well, this is a forum, not an out-loud discussion, so those are 2 completely different scenarios
They were also already given the link, so I guess:
Imagine being in the middle of a friendly conversation where someone asks for something, you give it to them, and then they proceed to ask questions about it that could be answered by looking at the thing you gave them
I give you a green round ball. You then proceed to ask me the colour and shape of the ball.
I’m not the OP, so I wasn’t having a conversation with them. But to me it gives off the vibe of “Random stranger, you should do all the work for me and provide all the answers, because I’m too lazy to do any of it myself.”
Could just be me though 🤷
At this point everyone should know that YouTube thumbnails have no requirement for accuracy. It’s more like an album cover.
I know, but if they are about anything serious like tests, I think it’s a fair assumption that the thumbnail represent it reasonably.
If it’s misleading, I don’t want their vomit. They can just fuck right off. We already have more than enough misinformation. I simply don’t want to waste my time on bullshit.
I disagree with this being a good test. Where on earth would you find a wall on a road with a fotorealistic continuation of the road printed on it? This would trick many human drivers. Self driving cars fail in many realistic situations that are a lot more concerning. This is just clickbait.
While I agree that this would trick many human drivers, I think the goal of a self-driving car is that it be better than human drivers. And there is existing tech that could help achieve that.
True, but Mark’s video basically about comparing Tesla’s Camera Sensors Vs Self Driving car with a Lidar Sensor.
They also simulated some real life scenarios which the car with Lidar sensors passed easily, while Tesla failed some of them.
So I guess Lidar sensors are superior compared to Teslas cameras.
You haven’t seen what Teslas are in the news for lately?
It’s not that crazy someone would put up a fake wall on some backroad to catch out inattentive Tesla drivers. Doesn’t even need to be nearly as big and elaborate as this one. Any painted object would accomplish the same.
But the point of the video is that optical cameras are easily deceived, and Elon is lying to his customers that LiDAR is overrated and not necessary.
Doesn’t address the point that humans would be equally deceived by this wall if they don’t pay 100% attention.
I’d hit that
Where on earth would you find a wall on a road with a fotorealistic continuation of the road printed on it?
Spoken like a man who has never relentlessly pursued a roadrunner, nor taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
This YT channel definitely went all out on the cartoonish nature of this particular test, but the article describes other tests as well including running over mannequins representing children that other cars (Lexus) avoided.
I actually agree, it’s not really a good test. That wall is very realistic. It’s just that people get pissed about negativity.
But we OWNED AND SLAMMED Tesla!
But being dishonest about it, detract rather than add to it.
