Taken to the (more) absurd we wouldn’t have this issue if the claim was the cars could fly, be boats, or time travel. People wouldn’t buy the “capability” either.
This is a fascinating murky area and seems there’s no market solution beyond caveat emptor
I think so. It's interesting to discuss and think about, because the grey area is incredibly complex. (Not that we get too far into it on these kinds of forums.)
We don’t know this. That’s the point.
Capability is defined as "the facility or potential for an indicated use or deployment" [1]. There are other definitions. But selling capability based on future potential is not fraudulent, unless you say the capability is present.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capability emphasis mine
No, because there is no reasonable potential for it to generate enough thrust to be a lifting body. We understand aerodynamics enough to say that. We don’t understand self-driving cars enough to rule out the sensors on today’s Teslas being adequate, given the right software.
Saying someone is capable of climbing a mountain, conditioned on training, isn’t a lie. The caveat is important. I think Tesla has played fast and loose with its caveats in a way that produces civil liability. But it doesn’t appear to be wilfully defrauding its customers, who are more or less happy with their cars.
A Tesla today has no self-driving capability without software that doesn't exist. That means it doesn't have self-driving capability. It doesn't mean that someone "played fast and loose with caveats."
Don't they already have a new, more powerful HW design for 2023 that is incompatible with the fittings for the old one?
Me either! But that’s not fraud. It’s delusion. We don’t criminalise it because the difference between genius and crazy is often only apparent ex post facto.