Driver tested whether Tesla would crash into wall disguised as road
A man tests whether Tesla's autopilot will crash into a wall painted to look like a road (screenshot: YouTube/Mark Rober)
In his new exposé video, YouTube blogger and former NASA engineer Mark Rober has clearly shown why relying solely on visual data from cameras is not the best idea for Tesla's driver assistance technology, reports Futurism.
The electric car manufacturer led by Elon Musk has completely abandoned the use of LIDAR and radar, which its competitors have been using for many years to detect objects. Musk once called LIDAR "damn stupid, expensive, and unnecessary."
But relying only on visual data, Tesla's autopilot can easily be fooled, whether it's a thick fog or a road painted on a wall, as Rober demonstrated in his latest video.
This experiment was a serious proof that Tesla's approach could lead to an accident. Experts have long warned that the use of cameras alone is a risky decision, especially when there are alternatives in the form of LIDAR and radar.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that, according to Musk, Tesla plans to release an "unauthorized" version of its controversial Full Self-Driving driver assistance system this year. This could further strengthen the false sense of security among drivers.
And Musk's plans to launch a robotaxi service will only exacerbate this obvious flaw.
During the tests, Rober compared the behavior of the Tesla and a test car with LIDAR sensors from Luminar when detecting a child dummy on the road.
Tesla failed the test from the very beginning. Even though the system recognized the child, the emergency braking did not work in time, and the car hit a mannequin at full throttle. When the stage was covered with smoke from a foggy car, the autopilot failed again. The result was the same in the pouring rain.
But the most revealing moment was the test with a road painted on the wall in the style of Wiley the Coyote cartoons. Tesla fell for the trick and crashed into the wall without slowing down.
Screenshot
Meanwhile, the Lexus with the LIDAR system from Luminar passed all the tests flawlessly.
"Now I can say with certainty that for the first time in the history of the world, Tesla's camera system will absolutely crash into a fake wall without even slowing down," Rober said in the video.
Of course, a painted wall is unlikely to be an obstacle on ordinary roads. But Rober's test perfectly demonstrates the key problems with using cameras alone.
Tesla's driver assistance systems have already been linked to hundreds of accidents and dozens of fatalities, as confirmed by regulators. And it is still unclear whether the autopilot will be able to become safe without supervision - especially with the current hardware limitations of the sensors in the company's cars.
