Monday Aug 12, 2019
Edward Niedermeyer on "Ludicrous" Stories About Tesla & Toyota
http://www.leanblog.org/345 <-- read a transcript here
My guest for Episode #345 is Edward Niedermeyer, author of the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. It's available now for pre-order at Amazon (with an August 20 release date).
Ed is currently the Senior Editor of Mobility Technology at The Drive. He was previously the editor-in-chief for the site The Truth About Cars. He's also one of the hosts of the Autonocast podcast about autonomous vehicle technology.
In the episode, Ed and I talk about his thoughts on Toyota as somebody who has covered the automotive industry for over a decade. While his book has a lot of interesting details and stories about Tesla and Elon Musk (for example, I learned that Elon was not a founder), we focus mainly on the failed relationship between Tesla and Toyota.
We also touch on the dynamics that lead to somebody who criticizes a company being labeled a "hater." It's interesting, perhaps, because Ed and I both want Tesla to succeed. Constructive criticism shouldn't be interpreted as wanting an organization to fail -- and that sometimes happens to people inside of different organizations, as well.
This is a long discussion, at about 75 minutes, but I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.