In part one, we looked at the Expert Fallacy and how it applies to Tesla. Now, I'd like to look at one particular person more deeply, Edward Niedermeyer.
Edward Niedermeyer is a fellow Oregonian, an automotive journalist, and the author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019). We've appeared together on the casual new vehicle tech show What Drives US? multiple times.
Niedermeyer has been a notable skeptic of Tesla and Elon Musk. IMHO, his writings and public statements reflect the expert fallacy. His industry expertise says that no one else has successfully done this, so Tesla will follow this well-worn path to failure. This rearview mirror perspective has shaped his narrative, particularly concerning Tesla’s trajectory over the past two decades. Edward overlooks the unpredictable nature of innovation. As I've said before, he is factually accurate, logical, and completely wrong.
Niedermeyer’s early coverage at The Truth About Cars (which included the Tesla Death Watch*) around 2008 portrayed Tesla as a struggling startup unlikely to survive. As Tesla advanced with the Roadster, Model S, X, and 3, Ed reinforced predictions of bankruptcy, arguing the company’s financial instability and production challenges would lead to its downfall. In Ludicrous, he critiques Tesla’s Silicon Valley approach, highlighting its departure from traditional auto industry standards, such as meticulous production planning, in favor of a “move fast and break things” mindset. He points to specific setbacks, including the 2015 battery-swap demo flop at Harris Ranch, where diesel generators undermined Tesla’s environmental claims, and the 2016 Model 3 production “hell,” where automated systems underperformed. These examples support his view of Tesla as a company built on hype rather than substance, a stance he has reiterated in podcasts like The War on Cars, Tech Won’t Save Us, and The Autonocast, where he labels Musk a “huckster” skilled at selling implausible promises like the "fraud" that is FSD.
* Niedermeyer claims that he was not involved with the Tesla Death Watch although he was there and writing about Tesla at that time.
Niedermeyer's skepticism mirrors the expert fallacy. Niedermeyer’s deep auto industry knowledge led him to anchor his predictions in known legacy automaker metrics, such as thin margins, slow scaling, quality control, and inability to quickly pivot. This misses Tesla’s non-linear growth driven by software, battery innovation, an expanding TAM, and more. In his 2016 New York Times op-ed, Niedermeyer criticized Musk’s unfulfilled self-driving promises. Yet Tesla’s market cap soared past $1 trillion by 2021, defying Ed's financial doom forecasts. And Tesla drivers who have purchased Tesla's driver-assist / supervised autonomy package are overwhelmingly happy with the feature.
Niedermeyer's, yet untitled, next book will be about Tesla's autonomous driving efforts. He has repeatedly called FSD a fraud on his podcast, so I don't expect his new book to offer an objective view of Tesla's FSD technology, Robotaxi deployment, or future. It will likely again (incorrectly) predict doom for Tesla and Musk, much like the 2008 Tesla Death Watch (that he was definitely not involved in).
Niedermeyer's focus on Tesla’s early defects and missed deadlines, like the 2018 500,000-vehicle target, overlooks Musk’s ability to raise capital (over $20 billion since 2010) and iterate quickly, turning setbacks into successes.
When a big, hairy, audacious goal is put forward, it does not matter if it arrives on the exact day of the prediction. We quoted the wise words from Trent Eady before, “If Musk promises you the moon in six months and delivers it in three years, keep things in perspective: you’ve got the moon.” Making the impossible merely late.
Niedermeyer’s stance also echoes the curmudgeonly attitude NASA’s Apollo team avoided (as noted in Part 1). His persistent negativity, especially in past interactions with Tesla fans, contrasts with the optimistic collaboration that fueled Apollo’s moon landing. Niedermeyer has left Twitter/X, and you can now find him on Bluesky, where he continues to be a bitter critic.
Niedermeyer has been accused of having financial ties to short-sellers, though I believe this to be unlikely. He does this because it's who he is, not because Jim Chanos is paying him for it. Niedermeyer's 2022 Slate article, titled "When Elon Musk Dreams, His Employees Have Nightmares", warned that Musk’s dysfunctional management of Tesla was a bad sign for Twitter. Yet Tesla has continued to be resilient, and X continues to operate.
That said, Niedermeyer is not always wrong. His call for a second opinion on Tesla’s hype is valid, though his own bias risks “opinion shopping” by leaning on accounts critical of Musk. Niedermeyer's authority led him to overestimate predictable failure while underestimating Tesla’s adaptive innovation, such as the Gigafactory’s cost reductions or Supercharger network’s competitive edge.
Niedermeyer has referred to the diesel generators at the battery swap station as Tesla's "first roach," and as the saying goes, "if you see one, you know there are more." Niedermeyer used this statement multiple times when appearing in various outlets to promote his book. This single statement encapsulates how he gets Tesla wrong. When you want to build something, you begin by getting things operational and then refining, rather than years of planning and analysis paralysis. If you want to build a battery swap station and recharge center, you need a significant industrial-level electricity supply. A utility cannot deliver that at the drop of a hat, so you find a way to develop a minimum viable product. From there, you iterate. You request the service from the utility, then when it arrives, you remove the generators. Until then, you have an operating swap station that you can use to develop the control software, test, debug, and improve the system.
And, by the way, that electrical service did eventually arrive. By then, the swap station was long gone as Tesla went all-in on Supercharging, but the provided electrical service was put to good use. The Harris Ranch Supercharger was built in the same area. With 98 charging stalls, Harris Ranch is a notable Tesla Supercharger location, and it's a popular stop for Tesla owners traveling along Interstate 5.
In summary, Niedermeyer’s writings and statements exemplify how expert predictions can falter when innovation defies norms. His focus on Tesla’s flaws and delayed timelines misses the broader picture of Tesla's innovation and success. There's a lesson in balancing experience and authority with openness to the unexpected. Reality is an open-world game, not a side-scroller. There's far more than one way to get to the finish line, and sometimes someone will make a move that you've never seen before, no matter how long you've been observing the game.