Headline Roundup • March 19th, 2025
Mark Rober’s Tesla Drove Itself Through a Wall. Was the Experiment Legit?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Popular YouTuber and former NASA engineer Mark Rober released a video that showed a self-driving Tesla car drive itself through a wall painted to look like a road, splitting mainstream media on the verity of the experiment.
The Details: In the video, which promotes Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology and Rober's company that sells products that use it, Rober tests LiDAR technology at Disney World to map its Space Mountain ride and then in a self-driving car by the company Luminar. Rober tests Elon Musk’s Tesla car, which is equipped with cameras, against Luminar’s LiDAR-equipped car in six trials that gauge the car’s ability to stop in different circumstances. Rober said he was not paid by Luminar.
‘Wile E. Coyote Wall’: In the final trial, Rober measures the car’s ability to stop itself from driving through a “Wile E. Coyote” style wall, that is painted to look like a road. The Tesla – which lost six to three – drove through the wall, while the LiDAR-equipped car stopped before hitting it.
Mainstream Media Coverage: Several mainstream outlets covered Rober’s findings at face value, including Newsweek (Center bias), The Verge (Lean Left), and Business Insider (Lean Left), framing the experiment as a failure for Tesla.
Mainstream Pushback: Other mainstream outlets have published critical coverage. An opinion published in Forbes (Center) said Rober’s effort is “almost entirely wasted” because “he uses an un-named version of Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’ system, which is its older freeway driver-assist tool.” The New York Post (Lean Right) highlighted online criticisms of Rober that noted inconsistencies in his video, such as claiming he’s using a Google Pixel to film, though it appears to be an iPhone, and that later published “raw footage” showed different speeds of the car, meaning Rober could have conducted multiple takes of the test. Bloomberg (Lean Left) noted that Luminar’s stock “soared” 29% immediately following Rober’s video.
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Featured Coverage of this Story
A YouTuber's homemade Tesla test looks like something straight out of a children's cartoon.
CrunchLabs founder and former NASA engineer Mark Rober put Tesla's Autopilot through its paces to see if it could detect the same road obstacles as a vehicle that uses LiDAR — a system that Elon Musk has previously called a "fool's errand."
The verdict? Kind of.
The automatic driving features of a Tesla car have been put to the test with a fake "Wile E. Coyote wall" by an engineering YouTuber, and it didn't go as Tesla CEO Elon Musk might have hoped.
Mark Rober, who has over 65 million subscribers on YouTube, tested the vehicle's autonomous cameras by driving at a screen with an exact replica of the road behind it, in the style of a Looney Tunes sketch. The car was unable to detect the wall, crashing directly through it.
Newsweek contacted Tesla for comment via email.
YouTube/Mark Rober
YouTuber Mark Rober is facing backlash over a recent video that depicted a spectacular “crash test” of Tesla’s Autopilot feature — with critics claiming it was a hoax orchestrated to hurt Elon Musk’s automaker.
In a video posted to his YouTube channel over the weekend, Rober’s Tesla Model Y seemingly failed to detect a Wile E. Coyote-style wall painted to look like a road – crashing through and demolishing a mannequin designed to look like a child.
But a LiDAR-equipped vehicle featured in the same video appeared to pass the test with...
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