There is nothing inherently scammy about automated blood testing, even if we currently lack the technology.

Continuing to brand something with deceptive wording does cross over into fraud.

There is room for fraud within a scope of offering undiscovered technologies, but the undiscovered technologies themselves are not fraud. Theranos isn’t comparable to self-driving cars.

So imagine I sell a future-looking feature which is incompete and unreliable, even causing an order of magnitude more fatalities per usage (e.g. mile) than the alternative. And continue to sell and offer it under a confusing name for years. What would have to happen for it to cross over from naive aspiration to fraud. I.e. for Tesla FSD to become like Theranos?

For me that line was crossed when Tesla offered FSD on public roads, to the general public, and continuing to include 'full' and "self driving" in the name. Every day it continues more non-Tesla owners are put at risk while the government is asleep at the wheel.

I think it is fair to draw some parallels between Tesla and Theranos, but the topic here is self-driving cars, not Tesla.

How is Tesla's FSD off topic during a discussion of self driving cars?

Tesla FSD is a product (or possibly a scam under the guise of a product). Self-driving cars are a concept.

Why would a real product named "self driving" not be relevant to a discussion on the concept?

The discussion isn’t about the concept. The discussion is about how the concept isn’t a scam.

IMO an example of self driving that is a scam is relevant to whether the concept as a whole may be a scam too.

Of course a counter example would be just as relevant since it could prove the concept isn't entirely a scam.

The example wasn't even that of a self-driving car related scam, but a scam found in the automated blood testing industry.

I raise Tesla as an example of a scam similar to Thermos in that it's crossed from naivete to fraud. And considering the stuttering progress of self driving by Uber and even Waymo (in adverse conditions) it may well be self driving as a concept is premature. So attempts to market and sell it as is (beta or not) are fraud.

You mean like selling realestate on the moon?