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!

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    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.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      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.

    • SloppyPuppy@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      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.

    • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      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.

      • Valmond@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        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.

        • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          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.

        • jaschen@lemm.ee
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          9 hours ago

          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.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            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. 👍 😀

        • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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          9 hours ago

          Why would children be interested in anything?

          Have you never seen educational content before that wraps up potentially boring teachings in an exciting narrative?

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            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.

            • zenpocalypse@lemm.ee
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              7 hours ago

              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.

            • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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              9 hours ago

              Including the horrible angle of headrests these days. You’re right though: nobody gives a shit about the extra safety features.

        • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          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.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrY-8_hJLJo

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            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.

              • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                8 hours ago

                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.

                • flamingarms@feddit.uk
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                  8 hours ago

                  “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.

                  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                    8 hours ago

                    By being different if it’s in the video, I’m just saying it’s OK to make the analogy WITH CONTEXT!
                    How do you understand it otherwise? It obviously doesn’t change the fact that the thumbnail is clickbait either way.

        • soycapitan451@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          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.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          8 hours ago

          When I was a kid I was extremely interested in junction layouts, it drove my parents mad. Kids like all sorts of random things.

        • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Kids love cyber trucks, teslas, Ferraris, or any car that is perceived as very expensive

    • MurrayL@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      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.

      • Tanoh@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        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.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        10 hours ago

        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?

        • Ulrich@feddit.org
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          6 hours ago

          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.

          • SloppyPuppy@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            I must say that the recommendation section on youtube for me is spot on! Though I spent years on youtube constantly liking and disliking content. But I think it learned me quite well.

            When im tired of recommendations I move to subscriptions. And 5 hours just passed by…

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            5 hours ago

            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.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 hours ago

        Still supports a creator pulling clickbait.
        The only way is to vote with views/retention.

        • Zink@programming.dev
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          8 hours ago

          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.

        • Chip_Rat@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          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.

            • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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              10 hours ago

              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.

      • melfie@lemmings.world
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        9 hours ago

        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.

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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        11 hours ago

        yeah but if you share it with people, they’ll still see the clickbait thumbnail, and that’s the actual problem

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Thanks no I hadn’t. Is that available as a Firefox extension. I do most of my browsing on desktop.

        • eneff@discuss.tchncs.de
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          11 hours ago

          The link is right there, you could’ve just clicked it instead of taking the time to write this question?!

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            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.

              • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                4 hours ago

                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.

                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.

                • eneff@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  8 hours ago

                  You cannot be serious?! Are you trolling?

                  • First of all, something not being free (as in gratis) does not mean it is proprietary per se.

                  • 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 :)

        • asap@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          Yes, but you could have just clicked the link to find that out

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            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.

          • kipo@lemm.ee
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            12 hours ago

            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.”

            • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              11 hours ago

              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

            • asap@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              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 🤷

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        If it’s made to be misleading and baiting, yes I FUCKING should. And so should you and everybody else.

        • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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          8 hours ago

          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.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            11 minutes ago

            How is it misleading?

            You can’t be serious? The clickbait image is not something that might actually possibly happen. The image in the video is.

            • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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              2 hours ago

              That is a distinction without a difference.

              They are both images depicting a drivable path, on a flat surface.

    • amorpheus@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      At this point everyone should know that YouTube thumbnails have no requirement for accuracy. It’s more like an album cover.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        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.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        Thanks. 😎
        Then imagine why 15% downvote? I suppose it means they don’t see how it’s misleading?

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          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.

    • justsomeguy@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      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.

      • Tope@sopuli.xyz
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        12 hours ago

        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.

      • goldteeth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        13 hours ago

        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.

      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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        9 hours ago

        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.

      • zqps@sh.itjust.works
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        11 hours ago

        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.

        • doodledup@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          Doesn’t address the point that humans would be equally deceived by this wall if they don’t pay 100% attention.

          • zqps@sh.itjust.works
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            55 minutes ago

            With this paint job, in this environment? Maybe. Though IRL you would probably see it much clearer due to the parallax effect that doesn’t affectb2D things.

            But if we’re talking e.g. about a dark-ish small barrier, your brain does a much better job to quickly recognize it as obstacle. Whereas cameras without any depth perception would fail completely.

      • OpenStars@piefed.social
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        11 hours ago

        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.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I actually agree, it’s not really a good test. That wall is very realistic. It’s just that people get pissed about negativity.