Self-Driving Tesla Crashes into Wall Painted to Look Like a Road… Just Months Before Planned Robotaxi Launch
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What would the wall being precut have to do with the car deciding to drive through it?
Yes but the main point that has been shown is that putting a screen up with the exact copy of the road and surroundings behind the screen is a daft and dangerous idea. It would be a better test if they had put up a polystyrene tree in the middle of the road and then checked if the car stopped.
I have never driven through a polystyrene wall with a picture of a road on it in 40 years because people just don't put those things up, they don't grow on roads etc etc.
Great YT clip for entertainment though.
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I seem to recall that fElon prevented the self driving team from utilizing LIDAR for any part of the system, instead demanding that everything run off of optical input. Does anyone else remember the same?
Tesla never had LIDAR. That's the little spinny thing you see on Waymo cars. They had RADAR, and yes it was removed in 2021 due to supply shortages and just...never reinstalled.
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What would the wall being precut have to do with the car deciding to drive through it?
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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?
And what is this "algorithm" based on?
No one knows.
Actual user behavior. So the way to correct an algorithm is to change actual user behavior, no?
Definitely not. I pretty much exclusively get recommended garbage content, and 90% of it is already on the "trending" page. At least it was like 3 years ago before I stopped using any of YTs first-party front-ends.
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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.
It may not rise to the level of proof, but it is a memorable and easily understood demonstration of something already proven by car safety researchers, as mentioned in the article.
Why shouldn't they precut the wall into cartoony shapes? It adds entertainment and doesn't compromise the demonstration.
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That would require signing in and allowing tracking.
Most 3rd party clients support RSS subscriptions.
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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!
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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 remember Elon foolishly saying his cars don’t need radar or lidar. Even software-disabling radar in cars that already had the hardware.
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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!
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
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It may not rise to the level of proof, but it is a memorable and easily understood demonstration of something already proven by car safety researchers, as mentioned in the article.
Why shouldn't they precut the wall into cartoony shapes? It adds entertainment and doesn't compromise the demonstration.
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And what is this "algorithm" based on?
No one knows.
Actual user behavior. So the way to correct an algorithm is to change actual user behavior, no?
Definitely not. I pretty much exclusively get recommended garbage content, and 90% of it is already on the "trending" page. At least it was like 3 years ago before I stopped using any of YTs first-party front-ends.
Presumably, the "algorithm" is based on whatever is most profitable. So probably some combination of most viewers, best ad engagement (click through rate), and best conversion/appeal to Premium subs.
That's assuming YouTube's primary goal is to make money, and which it should be as part of a publicly traded company.
My point is that those thumbnails and titles work, so if we want something different, we need to reward better thumbnails and titles and stop engaging w/ poor ones.
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They were expecting this result to be possible. What were they supposed to do? Slam the car into the side if a building?
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Yes but the main point that has been shown is that putting a screen up with the exact copy of the road and surroundings behind the screen is a daft and dangerous idea. It would be a better test if they had put up a polystyrene tree in the middle of the road and then checked if the car stopped.
I have never driven through a polystyrene wall with a picture of a road on it in 40 years because people just don't put those things up, they don't grow on roads etc etc.
Great YT clip for entertainment though.
Have you never heard of a mural before?
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Yes but the main point that has been shown is that putting a screen up with the exact copy of the road and surroundings behind the screen is a daft and dangerous idea. It would be a better test if they had put up a polystyrene tree in the middle of the road and then checked if the car stopped.
I have never driven through a polystyrene wall with a picture of a road on it in 40 years because people just don't put those things up, they don't grow on roads etc etc.
Great YT clip for entertainment though.
The other two tests that the Tesla failed were more realistic. Heavy fog and heavy rain.
It failed both.
If your self driving car cannot handle weather, then it's not self driving at all.
Actual lidar isn't fooled by weather. Shitty optical only cameras are.
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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?
Even then, that's not really correct. People grab data through sql queries all the time. Mostly because all the front ends are trash.
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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).
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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.
More than one test failed.
The Tesla failed the heavy rain and the heavy fog tests.
There's zero excuse to fail either of those tests. But the Tesla killed the kid both times.
The wall test was just to show that the Tesla cannot put together optical clues.
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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.
That's more a product if the yt algorithm. For every one like you that is annoyed by the clickbait, there are a million others instantly clicking with no further thought. So if you don't do that, you're losing money.
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Tesla never had LIDAR. That's the little spinny thing you see on Waymo cars. They had RADAR, and yes it was removed in 2021 due to supply shortages and just...never reinstalled.
It was removed due to supply chain, but Musk did seem to legitimately think optical only was better.
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Well, I guess we know how to defeat Teslas.
By not purchasing one.
They'll just go out of business eventually.
