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Self-Driving Tesla Crashes into Wall Painted to Look Like a Road… Just Months Before Planned Robotaxi Launch (fuelarc.com)

submitted 3 days ago by KayLeadfoot@fedia.io to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

359 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

the tested stopping distance for my car and 60-0 is about 120 feet

You drive a Corvette or something?

If you can see any flaws in my logic or math, I'd love to hear it.

The only mistake I see is that you made it unnecessarily complicated and still arrived at the same answer but stopped short of acknowledging that people cannot possibly drive on a crowded freeway with a football field following distance.

at the very least, if we're not in a middle lane and there's a shoulder, we should at least be able to dodge them if needed.

And if you are?

I spent several months refusing to drive over 55 mph

Run this experiment again at 55MPH and you'll get similar results.

just about any accident...is likely avoidable

"Just about" is doing a lot of work there. I maintain this particular situation is unavoidable.

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly, if the freeway is so packed that you can't maintain at least a 2 second following distance, then you (and presumably everyone else around you) is going too fast. It's a bad situation to be in, and the solution is to slow until the following distance is enough for your speed. If you're going fast enough to need an entire football field to stop, then you should have at least most of that available to you to react in.

As for being in the middle lane, yeah, that does reduce your escape routes. Makes it even more important to have adequate space in front of you.

Regarding the 55 MPH comment, I'm not sure what you're trying to say... But going that slow definitely gives you more reaction time and makes good following distances shorter, and except for traffic that's already forcing you slower than that anyway, you won't be driving too close to just about anyone.

And the "just about" is because I don't like talking in absolutes, because there absolutely are things out of our control on the road. This isn't one of them.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

the solution is to slow until the following distance is enough for your speed.

I don't know what part of "that's not possible" and "drivers will cut in front of you like a waterfall" you're not understanding

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

The part where it doesn't happen, but even with people moving in front of you, you're still in control of your following distance and speed. If they move in front of me, so what? They'll be at the following distance I'm maintaining because they're continuing to move faster.

And even then I'm probably still at or above the speed limit.

So, not only would someone have to cut in front of me, they would then have to match my speed, and then progressively slow down more than me to keep me at an unsafe following distance, and eventually we'll be stopped on the freeway.

But if the driver keeps going, then I'm still where I need to be.

(Note: I still have no problem doing this while maintaining the speed of the general traffic around me)

I've heard your arguments about people cutting in front of you, many, many times, and to this day, having driven in many different locations in many different types of traffic, I've yet to have that happen when doing the things I'm talking about. So you can go on saying how it's not possible and I'll go on doing exactly what you think isn't possible anyway, without issue.

(Btw, my adaptive cruise maintains an even longer following distance at its max setting than I do, and even using that I've not had people do what you've said)

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

If they move in front of me, so what?

Then you're no longer doing what you said you were doing...?

They'll be at the following distance I'm maintaining because they're continuing to move faster.

...what? That's not how distance works? If you're 300 ft behind and someone cuts in 100 feet in front of you, you're now at a following distance of 100 feet. Congratulations, you've just failed the objective. Then you slow down, but that doesn't matter because this happens over and over again as people try to get around you.

I'll go on doing exactly what you think isn't possible anyway

No you wont LOL. You're lying.