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!
The thing is, RADAR can see things humans can’t. There was a whole article a while back about a Model X that avoided an otherwise unavoidable accident by bouncing radar under the car in front of it and seeing that car slam on the brakes.
I will point out that if you (or your camera-only driver assist) can’t stop without hitting the car in front of you when they slam on the breaks, then you’re driving too close to them… You really shouldn’t ever put yourself in a position where the person in front of you could cause you to unavoidably hit them.
That said… Yeah, radar/lidar are far better than camera alone and there’s no good reason not to include them in the sensor suite unless you value profits over lives.
And I will point out that if the car in front of you isn’t paying attention and rams a stopped car in the middle of the road, you are fucked no matter what.