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> From the perspective of the lay investor, what distinguishes the two cases? You can buy a Tesla car today, strip it down, and confirm it works and isn’t a gi

> From the perspective of the lay investor, what distinguishes the two cases? You can buy a Tesla car today, strip it down, and confirm it works and isn’t a giant Potemkin village?

buvanshak 8y ago
>You can buy a Tesla car today, strip it down, and confirm it works and isn’t a giant Potemkin village? What about "Full self driving hardware"? I am pretty sure you are not going to find it there. And people have bought them thinking that it (full self driving functionality) is just one update away...
- dpark 8y ago
  In fairness, Tesla has promised that at some point in the future. They have not claimed that they have full self driving currently. Theranos claimed to have their system working.
  - buvanshak 8y ago
    The claim is full self driving hardware right now, right?
    - dpark 8y ago
      Shrug. Maybe they do have everything they need for self-driving in terms of hardware. Given that no one has full self-driving, no one has an actual list of the necessary hardware. I still see a claim about future functionality as a far different thing (even if they are wrong) than a false claim about existing functionality.
      - buvanshak 8y ago
        > Given that no one has full self-driving, no one has an actual list of the necessary hardware. Exactly what makes this false claim. Imagine someone gave you a drug and claim that it can cure cancer. It would be a false claim, even though it is possible that in future, it might turn out to be capable of curing cancer, by some specific method of application. The only problem is that that method is unknown today and no indication that such method might actually exist.. So just because in theory, you can strap on two forward facing cameras and call it full "self driving hardware" (because that is what humans have). Would you consider it legit?
        dpark 8y ago
        If I invite you over for dinner and tell you that I'm going to order Chinese food, but then I order Mexican food instead because the Chinese restaurant was closed, that's not a "false claim" and it's not fraud. It's simply incorrect (and annoying and perhaps shortsighted). Fraud requires bad faith. If you make a claim in good faith, then it is not fraud, even if it turns out that you are wrong. If Tesla believes, in good faith, that their hardware is sufficient to enable full self-driving, them it is not fraud. They might be wrong. They might even be incompetent, but that's not the same as fraud. Obviously, if they do not believe their hardware is sufficient, then it is fraud. Now, if Tesla sold you a car and told you that it is capable of fully self-driving right now, that would be indisputable fraud, because this claim cannot be made in good faith. This is what Theranos did. They did not claim that they had a potential solution. They claimed they had a completed product.
        buvanshak 8y ago
        You are squinting too hard. Don't squint too hard. You ll miss out all the important details. As you said earlier that "no one has an actual list of the necessary hardware". And if that is true, claiming that "our cars have full self driving hardware", is nothing but a big, fat lie. That is like selling a computer by saying that it has "full stock prediction hardware".Oh, I am not a fraud because I sincerely believe that my computer can see into the future. It just needs the right software. Oh believe me, I make this claim in good faith. What a crock of shit.
        dpark 8y ago
        Again, shrug. I don’t know that Tesla is wrong. They already have AutoPilot. It is not entirely unreasonable that they believe the gap to full self driving will be filled entirely by software. You insist on assuming that they are operating in bad faith by making a prediction and you keep giving bad faith examples as metaphors. If I sold you a car and told you that a future update would automatically dim and brighten the headlights based on whether the road was empty, would that be fraud? Assuming your car came with what I believed to be sufficient hardware capabilities to pull this off, this isn’t a bad faith claim unless I do not intend to deliver.
    - wetpaws 8y ago
      >self driving hardware You mean, computer?

> From the perspective of the lay investor, what distinguishes the two cases? You can buy a Tesla car today, strip it down, and confirm it works and isn’t a giant Potemkin village?

buvanshak 8y ago

>You can buy a Tesla car today, strip it down, and confirm it works and isn’t a giant Potemkin village? What about "Full self driving hardware"? I am pretty sure you are not going to find it there. And people have bought them thinking that it (full self driving functionality) is just one update away...

dpark 8y ago
In fairness, Tesla has promised that at some point in the future. They have not claimed that they have full self driving currently. Theranos claimed to have their system working.
- buvanshak 8y ago
  The claim is full self driving hardware right now, right?
  - dpark 8y ago
    Shrug. Maybe they do have everything they need for self-driving in terms of hardware. Given that no one has full self-driving, no one has an actual list of the necessary hardware. I still see a claim about future functionality as a far different thing (even if they are wrong) than a false claim about existing functionality.
    - buvanshak 8y ago
      > Given that no one has full self-driving, no one has an actual list of the necessary hardware. Exactly what makes this false claim. Imagine someone gave you a drug and claim that it can cure cancer. It would be a false claim, even though it is possible that in future, it might turn out to be capable of curing cancer, by some specific method of application. The only problem is that that method is unknown today and no indication that such method might actually exist.. So just because in theory, you can strap on two forward facing cameras and call it full "self driving hardware" (because that is what humans have). Would you consider it legit?
      - dpark 8y ago
        If I invite you over for dinner and tell you that I'm going to order Chinese food, but then I order Mexican food instead because the Chinese restaurant was closed, that's not a "false claim" and it's not fraud. It's simply incorrect (and annoying and perhaps shortsighted). Fraud requires bad faith. If you make a claim in good faith, then it is not fraud, even if it turns out that you are wrong. If Tesla believes, in good faith, that their hardware is sufficient to enable full self-driving, them it is not fraud. They might be wrong. They might even be incompetent, but that's not the same as fraud. Obviously, if they do not believe their hardware is sufficient, then it is fraud. Now, if Tesla sold you a car and told you that it is capable of fully self-driving right now, that would be indisputable fraud, because this claim cannot be made in good faith. This is what Theranos did. They did not claim that they had a potential solution. They claimed they had a completed product.
        buvanshak 8y ago
        You are squinting too hard. Don't squint too hard. You ll miss out all the important details. As you said earlier that "no one has an actual list of the necessary hardware". And if that is true, claiming that "our cars have full self driving hardware", is nothing but a big, fat lie. That is like selling a computer by saying that it has "full stock prediction hardware".Oh, I am not a fraud because I sincerely believe that my computer can see into the future. It just needs the right software. Oh believe me, I make this claim in good faith. What a crock of shit.
        dpark 8y ago
        Again, shrug. I don’t know that Tesla is wrong. They already have AutoPilot. It is not entirely unreasonable that they believe the gap to full self driving will be filled entirely by software. You insist on assuming that they are operating in bad faith by making a prediction and you keep giving bad faith examples as metaphors. If I sold you a car and told you that a future update would automatically dim and brighten the headlights based on whether the road was empty, would that be fraud? Assuming your car came with what I believed to be sufficient hardware capabilities to pull this off, this isn’t a bad faith claim unless I do not intend to deliver.
  - wetpaws 8y ago
    >self driving hardware You mean, computer?