Chinese real-world self-driving test: 36 cars, 216 crashes, with Tesla on top
Chinese media outlet Dongchedi closed down a real highway for a multi-day test of 36 different car driver assist systems in complicated, dangerous real-world driving situations, and most came up severely lacking – though Tesla escaped the tests relatively unscathed.
Over the years, we’ve seen our fair share of crash tests, often conducted in labs to detect the severity of a crash and the probability of injury to occupants. These tests focus on how well a car’s physical crash structures protect occupants, and occasionally other road-users, in the event of a crash.
Then there are “real-world” tests, like the famous “moose test” where a driver has to do a rapid direction change to avoid an intruding object in the road, testing vehicle dynamics and whether a car is able to handle quick changes in direction at high speed without rolling over.
More recently, crash tests have started to incorporate systems like Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), which is intended to apply the brakes when a crash is imminent to reduce severity of the crash, or even more recently, advanced driver aids collectively known as Advanced Driver Assist Systems or ADAS.
You’ve likely heard of these ADAS systems before, usually offered and branded by individual automakers, like Tesla’s Full Self-Driving, BYD’s God’s Eye, or Mercedes’ Drive Pilot. They’re not actually self-driving (well, Drive Pilot can drive you in certain circumstances, and Tesla says unsupervised FSD is Coming This Time Next Year™… for about the tenth year running), but they can fully control the vehicle on highways.
All of these fit under a common umbrella of SAE Level 2 systems that are meant to take some of the responsibilities of driving away from a human driver and let a computer handle them. This can help reduce driving fatigue, but more importantly, could also lead to safer driving as computers don’t lose attention or get tired and can theoretically make decisions much faster than a human could – or at least, that’s what auto industry marketing would like you to believe.
Despite the theoretical superiority of these computer systems, in the real world, anyone who has had experience with them knows that they can be strangely indecisive, and will often make different decisions even when encountering the same situation multiple times. That applies to these level 2 systems, and also to true self-driving systems like Waymo’s level 4 system.
Even if you haven’t driven in one, you’re probably skeptical. By now, we’ve all seen the Tesla Robotaxi fail videos, and heard about Autopilot deaths (including ones that get wrongly credited to Autopilot despite just being pedal confusion).
We’ve also seen that Tesla Wile E. Coyote video, where American Youtuber Mark Rober tested Tesla’s vision-only approach versus the vision+LiDAR approach – the latter of which most professionals agree is a more robust solution.
But there have been some real tests missing, among all this: a real-world, on-highway comparative test of several brands of car, in various complicated but plausible situations, with other cars driving around nearby, with full ADAS system activation, by an independent source.
Well, in comes Dongchedi with a test that beats the scale of any we’ve seen yet, which it posted on its youtube channel, DCARSTUDIO.
It’s in the form of a 92-minute video, only available in Chinese language (with English subtitles), where DCAR ran 36 separate cars available in China through six different situations to see how ADAS performed. It’s a great video that merits a watch, even though the language barrier and length may be a tough sell.
And, spoiler alert: things didn’t go all that well for most of the cars tested.
The six tests went as follows, and most included other active vehicles nearby to increase complexity and realism:
- A situation where you are following a lead vehicle, and the lead vehicle suddenly darts out of lane into another lane, revealing a stopped car in front of you, with traffic on your left restricting your ability to swerve/merge.
- A temporary construction zone in your lane, with short lead-up, requiring a merge.
- A construction zone forcing a merge, but a stationary truck parked on the shoulder, partially intruding into the active lane, at night.
- A stationary car with lights off, parked across two lanes, simulating a recently-crashed vehicle, at night.
- A vehicle joining the highway from an on-ramp and aggressively merging across lanes into the left lane in front of you, with no ability to avoid to the left due to guardrails.
- A boar darting across the highway.
Each test is a clearly difficult situation, and one which has led to many accidents in real life with human drivers. And each is plausible, and I would even hazard to say that most of us have seen a situation similar to one of these with our own eyes while driving (even beyond the simple construction zone test).
But if ADAS is supposed to be better and faster than humans, it should be able to handle these challenges, right? That is, after all, how many people use these systems, and how automakers market them (which is currently subject to legal action in California).
What makes this test different than others that we’ve seen (for example, the Mark Rober video) is that it happened on an actual public highway. Some automakers restrict certain ADAS features to public roads, or specifically to public highways, which are well-marked and thus less likely to offer unpredictable situations to systems that are still not ready to brave chaotic city roads. Doing the test on an actual highway means that these systems can run at their full potential.
In each of the tests, a majority of the cars either failed miserably or only did so-so. It almost seemed at first like the tests were configured deliberately to be impossible by the ADAS systems – but in each test, a few cars ended up being able to avoid any accident, a few managed to reduce the accident to a minor and survivable collision, and sometimes a few even seemed to behave like a human would, stopping and then creeping around the obstacle in question in as safe a manner as they could.
Not all vehicles did all six tests, some due to damage that made it impossible for them to continue (e.g. the Mercedes C-Class broke its radar sensor on the boar test), and some because DCAR trimmed the field down to the best-performing vehicle of each brand for some of the more difficult tests, like the aggressive merging test. So, 216 crashes might be a little poetic license on DCAR’s part, but maybe they just didn’t want to spoil the results in the title.
Some vehicles also showed weirdly conflicting behavior between performance of the AEB and ADAS systems. Cars which DCAR had previously tested and given a passing grade due to their AEB performance seemed to do worse on ADAS than otherwise. For example, there was a moment when the Xiaomi SU7 indicated it was activating AEB during test 1, but then stopped decelerating for a few moments, then started to decelerate again but was unable to avoid a crash.
And another interesting pattern that revealed itself was that many of the systems tried to swerve first, and only after that would hit the brakes, to try to avoid crashing into an object ahead of them in the lane. Swerving is often a less-safe behavior, at least in the situations tested on crowded highways, because swerving can spread an incident to other lanes, and because you don’t always know what’s right beside you at all times, given you only have two eyes on a swivel.
ADAS systems theoretically don’t have this disadvantage, since they can have cameras and sensors all around the car.
And yet, despite having those sensors and knowing there was no space to move to the side into neighboring vehicles, quite often the cars would try to swerve into a side lane, making those cars have to take evasive action even if they were close to the median, and only after creating a more dangerous situation would they return back to their lane, attempt to brake, and be unable to do so because of the time spent swerving and unsettling the car’s mass, time which could have been better spent slowing the vehicle to avoid or minimize the severity of a collision. These systems which are supposed to think much faster than a human showed the same potentially fatal indecision that so many human drivers show.
Of course, the best way to avoid all of this is just to leave more space between yourself and the car ahead. DCAR’s test driver often mentioned that the vehicles seemed to be following far too close before these accidents happened.
In the end, across all of the tests, Tesla came out on top, with both the Model 3 and Model X passing 5/6 tests. But they failed different tests – with the Model X driving into a well-marked construction zone and the Model 3 recognizing but not slowing fast enough to avoid the boar (only one vehicle avoided the boar: the Model X).
This is an interesting result, because Tesla has a vision-only system, using cameras and no other sensors. The cars were equipped with a variety of systems, some vision-only and some also including LiDAR and radar. The LiDAR systems should have had the advantage during nighttime, though none of the tests happened in inclement weather (heavy rain and fog), which is where LiDAR really shines.
But Tesla also has more experience offering driver-assist systems than the other brands. Tesla has been offering some form of driver assist since 2014, which is well before many of these companies even existed. That, along with the millions of miles of data collected from its vehicle fleet, surely helped Tesla get its crown in these tests.
But despite Tesla’s high performance, there is still a worrying pattern among the tests – even Tesla’s. Because, strangely, even cars within the same brand showed wildly differing results on the same tests.
For example, the top-range Aito M9 passed 3/6 tests, but the next step down, the M8, passed 1/6 tests. The lower-end Aito, the M7, passed 2/5 tests, faring better than the M8. The Aito M9 has the most sophisticated system the brand offers, but still failed the construction truck test, while the M7 passed it. DCAR compiled the results into tables in the video, but they’re all in Chinese – so CarNewsChina helpfully compiled a table in English text form.
And as mentioned above, the Teslas each failed a different test, despite having the same systems installed. It’s possible that they could have been on different versions of FSD, but each individual update usually doesn’t make that much difference in capability.
This inconsistency doesn’t inspire confidence – given systems showed wildly differing results in the same situation, it makes one think that some of the systems might have just had a good or bad day, and that a future test could flip the results completely. The problem is, we don’t know exactly what went wrong, because we can’t examine the rules in the code that led to these decisions… because there is no ruleset behind the machine learning models used by ADAS systems these days.
In the video, DCAR interviewed Lu Guang Quan, from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who pointed out this behavior as a concern with today’s ADAS systems. Since so many of them use machine learning to learn the rules of driving, when mistakes happen it’s impossible to figure out what rule in the computer’s programming might have led to the error.
“A learning model is just collecting experience. It knows how to drive but not why,” said Lu. “These so-called ‘long tail scenarios’ barely ever happen, but the risk is sky high. You won’t find them in any training dataset. The systems straight up haven’t learned this stuff.”
Lu said that “rule based models would provide stronger failsafes,” because then it would be possible to correct errors in the code, rather than the black box that machine learning models currently offer.
Given the results of its tests, DCAR concludes the video by saying “We hope everyone takes a rational look at this. These highway crash recreations show the limits of ADAS. Given their current capabilities, they cannot support full hands-free or feet-free driving. No matter what marketing claims, we should treat ADAS only as a safety assist. Human driving must remain primary. ADAS only helps reduce your driving fatigue. That 1% risk, once it happens, it can lead to 100% casualties.”
So we at Electrek also hope this is a reminder to everyone who has gotten comfortable with using these systems routinely. Not only is there still a lot they can’t do, but even if your car does show it’s capable of handling a situation once, there’s always a chance it might do something different the next time around. So keep your eyes on the road – and don’t just leave it to God’s Eye to watch what’s going on.
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Mark Kay’s iconic Pink Cadillac awards are driving into the future for 2025. The company’s first-ever electric Pink Cadillac OPTIQ made its debut during the Mary Kay annual Seminar in Charlotte this weekend, symbolizing a “recharged vision” for the future of the popular brand.
Pioneers in monetizing friendships female empowerment and entrepreneurship, the Pink Cadillac is considered one the most coveted symbols of achievement for Mary Kay sales reps, signifying not just great sales (GM Authority reported that it took ~$102,000 in annual sales to qualify back in 2001), but also leadership, a history of mentoring others, and a sustained reputation of excellence among their peers.
The women you see behind the wheel of the Pink Cadillac are the real deal, in other words, and the big Caddy really does mean something to people in the know.
The iconic pink Cadillac was born in 1968 when Mary Kay Ash purchased a Cadillac Coupe De Ville from a Dallas dealership and promptly had it painted to match the pale pink Mary Kay lip and eye palette. General Motors later named the color Mary Kay Pink Pearl, and the shade is exclusive to Mary Kay.
MARY KAY
Now, the Pink Cadillac is going to stand for environmental sustainability, too, enabling Mary Kay’s top performers to set yet another positive example for anyone aspiring to their success.
“For decades, the Mary Kay pink Cadillac has symbolized accomplishment, aspiration, and the power of recognition,” said Ryan Rogers, Chief Executive Officer of Mary Kay. “With the introduction of the all-electric OPTIQ, we’re honoring that iconic legacy while driving into a transformative future—one grounded in our commitment to sustainability and dedication to inspiring and celebrating the achievements of our independent sales force for generations to come.”
Mary Kay announced its new Pink Cadillac with this video, below.
Same Legacy, New Energy
“The legacy continues with the new, all-electric (and still very pink) Cadillac Otiq [sic],” reads the official Mary Kay copy on YouTube. “The Optiq remains instantly recognizable with the pink pearl exterior, while modernizing with sleek, cutting-edge features. In addition, this vehicle showcases our commitment and dedication to sustainability by reducing our carbon footprint while continuing to inspire.”
Speaking of inspiration, I can’t hardly hear the words “Pink Cadillac” without thinking of the song. But, since “Bruce Springsteen” has become something of a trigger word for the MAGA snowflakes in the audience, I’ll post a different, but similarly great song about rose-tinted GM flagships from Dope Lemon. You can let me know what you think of it in the comments.
As ever, the Cadillac is not a “gift,” per se – but typically takes the form of a two year lease paid for by Mary Kay. No word yet on what the exact shape and form the OPTIQ deal will take.
Electrek’s Take
Whatever you might think of MLMs or businesses like Amway, Avon, or Mary Kay, they play a big part in the social dramas of hundreds (if not thousands) of neighborhoods and online communities. The people at the top are influential, and the people “below” them genuinely try to emulate them and follow their lead.
Thanks to Mary Kay, that might soon mean a decision to buy an electric vehicle – and that result would be a win for everyone.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Mary Kay.
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RBW, a British handcrafted electric car manufacturer, brought its cute little Roadster out to Santa Monica and invited us up for a drive.
RBW has built cars in the UK for a few years now, but is about to set up US manufacturing in Virginia. Along with that comes a version of its Roadster modified for the US market, and we got a sneak peek with a short drive in Santa Monica.
The RBW Roadster is a small, hand-built, retro-style EV, meant as a modern take on British classics. But it’s not an actual classic itself – it’s a newly-built vehicle, with a new body, modern safety features, and even some electronics, like CarPlay and Android Auto (but not much else – there’s no huge, cockpit-defining screen, just a 9″ one, with retro gauges in front of the driver. But it does have a backup camera!).
Our drive was short, just a quick trip up and down the most trafficky part of Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, without much chance to really stretch the vehicle’s legs. So we can’t verify range or tell you how it handles on the limits, but we can tell you about the basic controls and feel of the vehicle.
On a mostly smooth road, the car offered a comfortable ride dynamic. We didn’t get a sense of chassis noise because the top was down (which I surmised was an intentional effort by the company – I’ve used the same trick when showing off my car before).
The steering is tight and has a good weight to it, and the retro-style steering wheel felt great in my hands.
Of particular interest to me, as a long-time EV driver, is how the throttle pedal is tuned. Lots of EVs add some intentional delay or smoothing to throttle inputs, which ends up making the pedal feel mushy and indirect, reducing the control you have over the vehicle.
For reference, the cars I drive most often are the Tesla Roadster and Model 3, which both have excellent direct pedal feel.
And I’m happy to report that the RBW Roadster’s throttle pedal feels very similar to the cars I love to drive. The car feels quick, and responds exactly to what I want it to do, when I want it to do it. But it’s not excessively “punchy” like some of the more absurdly-powered EVs can be (like the Tesla Model S Plaid or the Macan Turbo S).
It does not, however, have off-throttle regenerative braking, aka one-pedal driving. Pressing the brake pedal engages regen, but letting off the throttle lets you simply coast. I personally prefer one-pedal driving, but one consideration RBW had is that since the car does not have traction control, regenerative braking on the rear axle (where the motor is) could potentially present a safety issue on slippery roads. So, fair enough I guess, but I still do prefer one pedal.
Speaking of pedals, the brake pedal was placed quite far from the accelerator. This is a plus and a minus – a minus because it’s quite different from most vehicles these days, where the pedals are placed closer, for ease of reaching them with your right foot. A plus because higher separation might reduce the chance of “crossing the pedals” and accidentally pressing both with the same foot in an emergency situation, and because it enables left-foot braking, which is generally better for performance driving… in the hands of a trained driver, anyway.
That said, this isn’t exactly a performance car. It’s fun, it’s responsive, but it’s not powerful. The version we tested had a 0-60 time of only around 9 seconds, so it didn’t give you the “throw your head back” feeling that so many EVs on the road these days do. It’s responsive, but not fast.
RBW says the American version will have more motor power than the UK version, but it’s still trying to figure out exactly how to tune it. This should bring 0-60 times down by about a second. But we can’t help but think that it would be nice with even a little more power than that, which we think should be possible given the car’s 50kWh battery and ~2,900lb weight, specs that are similar to my similarly-sized Tesla Roadster (as you can see below – along with the GT version of the RBW, on the right).
Here’s an issue: all the specs we were given seem extremely fluid. While talking to the company, I got several different numbers for any given specification. It seems to me like the company is still figuring out exactly what changes it will make for its US models.
This is somewhat to be expected of a small, hand-built manufacturer, especially since buyers can ask for certain modifications or personalizations (seat height, for example, which is important in a small car like this). But it does make it tough to write an article about it.
Nevertheless, the car drives well, and RBW seems to have gotten a lot right about the dynamics of the vehicle. It executes well on its goal – a fun, small British-style roadster, a great weekend car for those who have the means.
As for the means, the RBW Roadster will start in the $140-150k range, so it’s not cheap. But if you’re looking for something like this, it’s just about the only game in town, and it’s a good execution of the feel of a nimble roadster for weekend cruising.
RBW is currently taking $1,000 reservations for 2026 builds, and you can have a look at configurations (paint, roof, interior, wheels) over on its website.
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Canadian startup Beachman has just unveiled its latest electric two-wheeler, the ’64, a vintage-styled electric motorcycle that looks like it rolled straight out of the 1960s. With throwback café racer design and a respectable top speed of 45 mph (72 km/h), it’s a slick little ride with a curious twist: it calls itself an e-bike.
It’s not just a casual reference, but it’s baked into the name. The full model name on Beachman’s website is the ’64 E-Bike.
While I’d generally be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, since many motorcyclists refer to electric motorcycles as “e-bikes” and the term has a broad definition in colloquial usage, the company is obviously casting more in the “electric bicycle” end of the spectrum. They even say on their website that it is “rideable as either a Class II E-Bike or a Registered Moped (in most states).”
Despite lacking pedals entirely – and clearly designed more like a lightweight electric motorcycle – the Beachman ’64 comes with a selectable “E-Bike Mode” that limits it to 20 mph (32 km/h). The implication? That riders can use this obvious motorcycle in bike lanes like a Class 2 e-bike. Legally speaking, that’s a stretch, to put it mildly. In fact, I’m not currently aware of any state where that’s explicitly legal, though it could probably pass in many states due to the current state of enforcement we usually see.
According to Beachman, the ’64 has three ride modes:
- E-Bike Mode: 20 mph (32 km/h) top speed, which the company says is “perfect for bike lanes.”
- Moped Mode: 30 mph (48 km/h) top speed, which does match legal definitions for mopeds in some jurisdictions, even without pedals.
- Off-Road Mode: 45 mph (72 km/h) top speed, no pretense – just a motorcycle.
In practice, I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination to assume that most riders will likely keep it in Off-Road Mode, where the bike delivers its full 3,000W performance and offers the most fun. And specced with decently large batteries, it could actually do some modest commuting, even at higher speeds. The ’64 comes with a removable 2.88 kWh battery (or optional 3.6 kWh upgrade), and range is estimated at 55–70 miles, depending on configuration. It charges to 80% in three hours and even features regenerative braking.
The company leans heavily on its “timeless design” messaging, and to their credit, the ’64 nails the aesthetic. It looks great. The frame, tank, and seat all channel classic motorcycle vibes while skipping the modern digital overload – no apps or touchscreens here. Just a clean, simple throttle and some retro charm.
But for all the cool factor, the classification confusion raises eyebrows. Calling a 45 mph, pedal-less motorcycle an “e-bike” in any meaningful legal sense is a misfire. Some states allow low-speed mopeds in bike lanes, but others draw the line at motorized vehicles without pedals. The ’64 might get away with it in limited cases, but most jurisdictions will (rightfully) require it to be registered and insured as a motor vehicle. And it’s unclear if explaining to the officer, “But I had it in 20 mph mode…” will help much on the side of the road.
Still, Beachman is aiming at a particular rider who wants motorcycle style and speed without all the baggage. With a starting price of $4,800, the ’64 could be an appealing step-up for e-bike riders looking to graduate into something faster without committing to a full-sized gas bike.
Just don’t expect to blend in on the bike path.
Electrek’s Take
Look: The bike looks fantastic and probably rides well, but come on, it’s a 230 lb (105 kg) motorcycle.
Let’s stop calling every throttle-only EV an e-bike just because it’s got two wheels, a battery, and a button that neuters it to 20 mph. This has gotten silly. You built a great-looking bike. But it’s a bike in the way a motorcycle rider refers to his “bike.” It’s not a bicycle, and it’s not a bike lane vehicle any more than a Sur Ron is. At least not if you respect your fellow two-wheel riders around you.
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