SELF-DRIVING TESLA CRASHES INTO WALL PAINTED TO LOOK LIKE A ROAD

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 was a full-speed, 40 MPH impact straight into the wall.

… Rober set up a head-to-head test between Tesla’s camera-based self-driving system and a Lexus equipped with Luminar’s LiDAR-based autonomous technology. While the Tesla plowed straight into the wall, the LiDAR-based system detected the painting as a solid object and stopped in time.

… Even better, the LiDAR-equipped Lexus correctly identified a child-sized mannequin through dense fog and a torrential downpour — scenarios where the Tesla ran over the mannequin.

… The timing couldn’t be worse for Tesla. Just a few months from now, the company plans to launch its first “unsupervised” Robotaxi program in Austin, Texas.