this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Have you heard of DeArrow? https://dearrow.ajay.app/
It's a browser extension that replaces clickbait thumbnails with good community sourced ones
Still astounded people use anything other than the subscription section on YouTube.
History turned off, subscriptions only for me.
We are in a tiny, tiny minority.
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.
At this point everyone should know that YouTube thumbnails have no requirement for accuracy. It's more like an album cover.
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.
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.
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.
Spoken like a man who has never relentlessly pursued a roadrunner, nor taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
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.
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.
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.
You shouldn't judge a book by its cover.