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Elon Musk Isn't That Smart, Exhibit A - LIDAR and the Wile E. Coyote Test
Take a look at Mark Rober's latest video on YouTube (skip ahead to the second half if you aren't interested in his Disneyland adventure):
I'm going to spoil the results for anyone who doesn't want to watch all the way to the end ... . . . . . . The Tesla fails the Wile E. Coyote test. A vehicle equipped with LIDAR does a much better job avoiding obstacles that cameras (or the human eye for that matter) couldn't see.
"So what, Tenchu? The Tesla's autonomous driving mode isn't perfect, and no one should rely on it 100%!"
Yes, but look at what Elon Musk said about LIDAR back in 2021:
Musk said that "LIDAR is for losers" because he was confident he and his engineers could solve the "computer vision problem."
Well it's been four years, and Tesla is no closer to solving the "computer vision problem" than back when they removed LIDAR from their cars.
And the only reason why Tesla removed LIDAR is to save on cost.
Now it's 2025. LIDAR is getting cheaper. (So are Teslas, but for the wrong reasons.)
Musk was confident that he could solve the "computer vision problem" by now, but he has failed.
Even though AI has advanced by leaps and bounds since 2021, we are still no closer to cars that can drive themselves with just cameras.
All the other self-driving car companies out there, including Waymo, uses LIDAR.
"But but Musk said it himself! He's not going to bat 1000!"
Right, but not once have I seen Musk admit that he was wrong about the usefulness of LIDAR.
And as Tesla battles lawsuits revolving around crashes involving autopilot, Musk's overselling of the technology is going to bite him in the ass.
(Or WAS going to bite him in the ass, until he became the unelected President of the U.S.)
Bottom line
Musk was completely confident in Tesla's ability to drop LIDAR and have their cars rely on cameras alone for their autopilot.
But four years later, as Mark Rober proved, their cars are proving to be no smarter than Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius ...
And this is supposedly an example of Musk's "genius" at work, in areas that he SHOULD know more about than anyone else, including cars and AI.
In the end, every single attempt at "genius" by Wile E. Coyote ends up in utter disaster. Most of his attempts literally blow up in his face.
Same thing is going to happen to Musk and his DOGE experiment. The "genius" is going to fail, because he and his army of incels have no fukkin' clue what they are doing.
This point, of course, is going to be lost on the MAGA cultists on this thread, who will react in the most predictable (and brainless) ways. But I suspect reality will eventually catch up to them.
