Audiobook8 hours
Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors
Written by Edward Niedermeyer
Narrated by Roger Wayne
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Tesla Motors and CEO Elon Musk have become household names, shaking up the staid auto industry by creating a set of innovative electric vehicles that have wowed the marketplace and defied conventional wisdom. The company's market valuation now rivals that of long-established automakers, and, to many industry observers, Tesla is defining the future of the industry. But behind the hype, Tesla has some serious deficiencies that raise questions about its sky-high valuation, and even its ultimate survival.
Tesla's commitment to innovation has led it to reject the careful, zero-defects approach of other car manufacturers, even as it struggles to mass-produce cars reliably, and with minimal defects. While most car manufacturers struggle with the razor-thin margins of mid-priced sedans, Tesla's strategy requires that the Model 3 finally bring it to profitability, even as the high-priced Roadster and Model S both lost money. And Tesla's approach of continually focusing on the future, even as commitments and deadlines are repeatedly missed, may ultimately test the patience of all but its most devoted fans.
In Ludicrous, journalist and auto industry analyst Edward Niedermeyer lays bare the disconnect between the popular perception of Tesla and the day-to-day realities of the company-and the cars it produces.
Tesla's commitment to innovation has led it to reject the careful, zero-defects approach of other car manufacturers, even as it struggles to mass-produce cars reliably, and with minimal defects. While most car manufacturers struggle with the razor-thin margins of mid-priced sedans, Tesla's strategy requires that the Model 3 finally bring it to profitability, even as the high-priced Roadster and Model S both lost money. And Tesla's approach of continually focusing on the future, even as commitments and deadlines are repeatedly missed, may ultimately test the patience of all but its most devoted fans.
In Ludicrous, journalist and auto industry analyst Edward Niedermeyer lays bare the disconnect between the popular perception of Tesla and the day-to-day realities of the company-and the cars it produces.
Related to Ludicrous
Related audiobooks
You Only Have to Be Right Once: The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robot, Take the Wheel: The Road to Autonomous Cars and the Lost Art of Driving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Racing with Rich Energy: How a Rogue Sponsor Took Formula One for a Ride Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What It Means for Our Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boom: Bridging the Opportunity Gap to Reignite Startups Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalmart: Diary of An Associate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDriven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Counter-Cola: A Multinational History of the Global Corporation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fins: Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Never Lost Again: The Google Mapping Revolution That Sparked New Industries and Augmented Our Reality Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Players Ball: A Genius, a Con Man, and the Secret History of the Internet's Rise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider's Story of Organizational Drift and Its Unintended Consequences Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Valley of the Gods: A Silicon Valley Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America's Kings of Beer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Binge Times: Inside Hollywood's Furious Billion-Dollar Battle to Take Down Netflix Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ford Tough: Bill Ford and the Battle to Rebuild America's Automaker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Were Yahoo!: From Internet Pioneer to the Trillion Dollar Loss of Google and Facebook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Industries For You
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kingdom of Prep: The Inside Story of the Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sam Walton: Made in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Secret Formula: The Inside Story of How Coca-Cola Became the Best-Known Brand in the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of "The View" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mind Your Mindset: The Science That Shows Success Starts with Your Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All You Need to Know About the Music Business: 11th Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lego Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Ludicrous
Rating: 4.144736868421052 out of 5 stars
4/5
38 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The book goes through the different stages of Teslas life and how Musk managed to survive everytime dispite the odds. The author focusus on the problems of Tesla, but is not unfair. Despite being about the technical snd manufacturing aspects of the car industry the book is above all a window into 21st American culture. He convincingly reveals Tesla to be more of a cultural pgenomenon then a car.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Full of interesting info particularly on Elon Musk but also Tesla and its competition. Particularly worth listening too if you are on the waiting list for a Tesla.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From 2018. The book’s main thesis is that Tesla has always faced challenges delivering on Musk’s outsized promises, but that luck and bravado have enabled it to maintain a soaring stock price. Focuses on production/engineering issues, like whether they actually had the claimed fast chargers or chargers that operate on solar power, rather than on treatment of workers, etc. Unfortunately, the book undercuts its own thesis, which is that Musk has been definitively exposed as unreliable, because after every exposure documented, enough people shrug or cry fake news to keep Tesla stock high. Still, it’s hard to think the party can last forever; as Niedermeyer points out, the legacy car companies are not shy about investing in competing cars and can actually make a lot of cars that work, something that Tesla has not shown. Also, the future of electric cars is probably not mostly in high-end, luxury brands, but in basic production configurations that can be built into cheap cars as well as a few high-end models, again something that the big makers can do and Tesla can’t. Of course, the market can stay irrational longer than you or I can stay solvent. So I guess we’ll see.