Today Nathan is joined by Edward Niedermeyer, an investigative journalist whose book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors remains the definitive critical account of the rise of Elon Musk and Tesla. Edward is an auto industry expert whose work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg View, and elsewhere, and he currently hosts the Autonocast podcast about the development of autonomous cars. We discuss how Tesla motors has been built into a powerhouse in the automotive industry, and Edward argues that it has required a LOT of deception. We discuss:

- Why Tesla has been so successful—is it mostly branding and hype or are there real innovations underneath it all?

- Whether luxury electric cars are actually important in the fight against climate change

- How government subsidies have played a role in making Musk's unprofitable venture survive

- How dependent Tesla is on a constant hype machine that is not matched by its actual output

- The strategies the company has used to discredit critics

- The way economic value can be built on perceptions rather than reality

- The parallels between Tesla's brazen violation of norms/standards and the similar behavior oof Donald Trump

- The "culture of impunity" that lets corporate wrongdoers off the hook for ignoring laws and basic principles of safety and good design 

- How the lies of Elon Musk have now had deadly consequences: Tesla users have died in car accidents by taking the company's hyped-up claims about self-driving capabilities seriously 

- How the company is fine taking insane careless new risks like letting drivers play video games while they drive

The New York Times report Nathan refers to is here. Nathan's article on Elon Musk is here.