Mark Rober’s Tesla video was more than a little weird

Mark Rober’s Tesla video has kicked up a lot of reactions claiming it was fake. | Screenshot: Mark Rober

Over the weekend, former NASA engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober published a video that sought to demonstrate the difference between Tesla’s camera-only Autopilot system and a vehicle equipped with lidar. He wanted to see whether the vehicles would stop automatically before hitting a Wile E. Coyote-style wall that was painted to look like a road. 

Spoiler alert: the lidar-equipped vehicle brakes before crashing into the wall, while the Tesla Model Y plows right through it.

The video was a huge hit, amassing 10 million views in just two days. A lot of people praised Rober for exposing the dangers posed by Tesla’s driver-assist system. But others accused Rober of faking the video, noting a number of inconsistencies. Some claimed the video was a secret ploy by Tesla’s enemies to undermine Elon Musk’s mission to advanced self-driving cars, thanks to the extensive promotion of Luminar throughout the video. I reached out to Rober to see if he wanted to address any of these claims but haven’t yet heard back.

Personally, I take issue with the title of Rober’s video, “Can you fool a self-driving car.” Neither vehicle in the test was self-driving. Autopilot, which is …

Read the full story at The Verge.