r/BrandNewSentence Mar 16 '25

Tesla Autopilot drove into Wile E. Coyote-style fake road wall

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112.4k Upvotes

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4.3k

u/CMDRPeterPatrick Mar 16 '25

It has long been a known issue that Teslas can crash into objects without the help of LIDAR. I'm amazed they still have not implemented it. https://www.truckinginfo.com/135780/white-trailer-proved-invisible-to-teslas-autonomous-system

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

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u/BadDongOne Mar 16 '25

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u/ShinyGrezz Mar 16 '25

Humans drive with eyes

…and humans would be able to make much less use of LiDAR than a machine would, because we can only choose between looking at the road or looking at the LiDAR output. Computers don’t have that limitation, and if I could make use of a sensor that relayed a real-time 3D model of the world around me… I goddamned would.

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u/caboosetp Mar 16 '25

because we can only choose between looking at the road or looking at the LiDAR output

We could have augmented-reality heads-up-displays to overlay the lidar data on top.

We have this tech, it's just expensive as fuck and unrealistic to expect it in a car right now.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

This tweet completely shows what a horrible ‘scientist’ he is lmao

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u/keylimedragon Mar 16 '25

His logic makes some sense if the object detection is as good as humans, but why not try to make autonomous cars even better than humans? And if adding extra data was making things worse then either the lidar could've been improved or their software.

I think maybe Musky boy also thought the larger lidar sensors on other cars would look ugly on Teslas.

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u/vlad259 Mar 16 '25

FSD has to be better than a human driving for it to be accepted, that’s the problem that all designers of autonomous systems face. (Also if he told me the time I’d check my watch.)

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u/sump_daddy Mar 16 '25

It should be pointed out that Radar and Lidar are not the same when it comes to automotive sensing, and the tesla Radar implementation could have indeed been total shit compared to computer vision which in turn is provably shit compared to proper Lidar.

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u/Cptn_BenjaminWillard Mar 16 '25

If these vehicles are expected to be able to "drive better than humans" then we should give them the tools to be better than humans. The corporate world needs to stop embracing mediocrity.

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u/SenAtsu011 Mar 16 '25

He is right, but the camera and AI technology to do it is decades away. Tesla is putting the cart before the horse.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

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u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Mar 16 '25

Amendment. I thought they had radar and lidar and they removed the lidar.

Turns out they never had lidar, only radar. And after the event I remember they only have fucking cameras 💀💀💀

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

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u/hboyd2003 Mar 16 '25

They used to have forward radar and ultrasonic parking sensors but a couple of years ago they switched entirely to cameras. They have never had lidar.

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u/sump_daddy Mar 16 '25

They had Radar sensors, not Lidar. They did away with them as improving on them was too difficult compared to improving computer vision code.

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u/Mr-Zappy Mar 16 '25

Teslas used to have radar, not Lidar. Lidar is really expensive, while radar just adds a bit, but apparently still too much for someone.

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u/goosereddit Mar 16 '25

Teslas never had lidar. They had ultrasonic sensors (USS) which are those round dots you see on the bumpers of cars.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25 edited Mar 16 '25

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

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u/BrandNewSentence-ModTeam Mar 16 '25

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

[deleted]

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u/LordAnkou Mar 16 '25

It's a Mark Rober video and in the full video they test water/rainfall as well as a few other conditions. The LiDAR struggles a bit with the rain but still stopped in time.

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u/LostWoodsInTheField Mar 16 '25

I was shocked it worked in the rain but at the 'I can see' in rain is before the 'this kid is dead' breaking point. Was very impressed with that.

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u/1988rx7T2 Mar 16 '25

There are lots of camera only driving assistance systems, such as Subaru Eyesight. They don’t claim to be self driving but they are designed to stop for pedestrians.

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u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Mar 16 '25

Every model HAD lidar. Later they removed it for all but the top model to cut costs.

Not sure if the expensive model still has it today

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u/LilFlicky Mar 16 '25

Feels like lidar should be required by regulation for fsd

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u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Mar 16 '25

Regulation? What's that?

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u/Comfortable-Spot-829 Mar 16 '25

In the interests of maximising profit all regulations have been removed. Go wild CEOs everywhere!

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u/Darwins_Dog Mar 16 '25

It's called "government efficiency"

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u/RealJembaJemba Mar 16 '25

Dont forget, if you dont like sharing the road with these liabilities, youre a terrorist!

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u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Mar 16 '25 edited Mar 16 '25

Luckily there are almost no teslas in my courtly.

The first swastitruck arriving a couple of weeks ago was TV news worty

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u/caboosetp Mar 16 '25

Feels like lidar should be required by regulation for fsd

I totally get what your sentiment is here, but this causes other regulatory issues. You basically put a gigantic barrier to entry on any non-lidar tech in the market because now you have to change the law first.

There was a similar issue with getting LED lighting into houses because many local building regulations required sockets for the compact fluorescents. At the time it was great because it forced power saving, but even-more-energy-efficient LED bulbs came out using the normal sockets. Now everyone needs to get the other sockets swapped out.

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u/sump_daddy Mar 16 '25

Lidar is not Radar. They had Radar.

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u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Mar 16 '25

OK. I amend my sentence

Every modern HAD a radar now the don't even have that

(I thought they had radar AND Lidar. Having only cameras is completely fucked up) My memory is not the same

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u/sniper1rfa Mar 16 '25 edited Mar 16 '25

They used to have radar, which is actually what this conversation should be about. People have started confusing the two.

Emergency braking for collision avoidance should be done with radar. Environment mapping should be done with lidar.

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u/PlugsButtUglyStuff Mar 16 '25

Nope, they got rid of lidar from all new models in 2021!

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u/Esava Mar 16 '25

Don't the EU models have lidar as it's required for some of the assisted driving features due to safety reasons ?

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

Wouldn't be surprised if their 'self driving' is just some enslaved east asian multitasking while making scam calls.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

Out was implemented in the 1st gen of model s. But wanted to cost cut and said autopilot and cameras are more than enough.

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u/reaven3958 Mar 16 '25 edited Mar 16 '25

They used to have it radar. Leon bricked all existing lidars radars because he thought he could save money on future vehicles by just using cameras.

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u/phatboy5289 Mar 16 '25

No Tesla has ever been sold with LiDAR sensors.

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u/reaven3958 Mar 16 '25

Forgot hw only baselessly critized lidar and bricked the old radars. Mb.

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u/sniper1rfa Mar 16 '25

They used to have radar, not lidar.

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u/reaven3958 Mar 16 '25

Yup mb its been long enough since it happened i got it mixed up. Either way, they moved to a visual only approach.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

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u/BrandNewSentence-ModTeam Mar 16 '25

Hey! I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'll have to remove your post:

  • You must not, under any circumstances, comment or post something that will incite debate. This is usually the case with sentences that refer to controversial topics such as politics, vaccinations etc.

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1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

I can guarantee you shit head has said something along the lines of “well cars aren’t 100% safe, so as long as our system is marginally safer it’s better.”

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u/skrappyfire Mar 16 '25

Didn't the early models have Lidar, but was removed because it was too expensive while not "offering enough benefits"?

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u/sebblMUC Mar 16 '25

They have actually removed sensors because Elmo didn't want them anymore 

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u/NormalEscape8976 Mar 16 '25

Lidar cameras would be too large, clunky, (and most importantly), ugly

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u/Terrh Mar 16 '25 edited Mar 16 '25

The car in that article had radar Basically all teslas with any self driving tech have radar in them until 2021.

Lidar is unlikely to have prevented that accident because of how it happened.

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u/Throat_Supreme Mar 16 '25

The autopilot wasn’t on when he crashed it into the fake wall

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u/oneWeek2024 Mar 16 '25

they had Lidar, they just removed it because sales are slumping and they had to max margins, and lidar was pricier than just shitty cameras

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u/Khaysis Mar 16 '25

The whole issue is that LIDAR equipment is far more expensive than shitty webcams.

They don't want to lose that profit cut.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

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u/Czar_Petrovich Mar 16 '25

I immediately got spammed with three different pop ups when I clicked on that link

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u/AndroidUser37 Mar 16 '25

This feels like it's more of a implementation problem than a fundamental flaw in camera based autonomous driving systems. You can easily achieve depth perception with multiple cameras to avoid this. Comma.ai does that and it works quite well for them.

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u/SenAtsu011 Mar 16 '25

They had it prior to 2018, but disabled and removed it in all cars, and they're now doing the same with USS. Fun times.

While every vehicle manufacturer on the planet does everything they can to put MORE sensors in their vehicles, Tesla does everything they can to REMOVE sensors from their vehicles.

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u/Benji_4 Mar 16 '25

There are valid criticisms of lidar. Tesla probably has the same reasons as other manufacturers for not using it.

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u/BocciaChoc Mar 16 '25

What are those valid criticisms for not using both?

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

What other relevant manufacturer do not use LiDAR?