[sarathlal]

The Electric car manufacturer, Tesla has done something that is revolutionary as its technology is.
They have open sourced all of their patents!

In the press release by Tesla CEO, Musk, clarified why they initially went with obtaining patents like any other, and then why decided to go against the tide.

At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn’t have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn’t burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales.

And this statement is for all those who are against the big handedness;

Today, "they(patents) serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors."

You can read the complete press release here: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-...are-belong-you

[rrsteer]

Very nice! Now that is innovative too.
But the cynical side in me tells me, it's being done for their own good. Till the time they were weary of competition, they followed the traditional way and now having established themselves and established a lead, they are inviting others to join the ring.

[sudev]

FOSS ideals implementation in vehicle manufacturing!!

One of the reasons of taking patents and then opening them for public is to prevent others from claiming prior right, even though they may not have been innovators, simply by taking out a patent and legally creating hurdles for others. Remember "haldi" patent taken out in US as a medicinal breakthrough?

[Fillmore]

I hope our friends at Mahindra Reva are able to leverage something and get us a better car. Or at least a cheaper car.

Go Mahindra "All our wishes are belong to you" !!!

However I do agree, a lot of thought must have gone into this move with hidden benefits to Tesla.
Perhaps they want more players in the market who will also introduce more charging stations everywhere.

Tesla already has a head start on the technology & manufacturing. Might take couple of years for others to catch up.
Theirs is already a niche product.

I wonder how long since we get to see a practical car at least on the lines of Nissan Leaf in India.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

The Electric car manufacturer, Tesla has done something that is revolutionary as its technology is.
They have open sourced all of their patents

No, it is nothing revolutionary as such. Has happened before in other industries as well. For the same reason, to accelerate the use and acceptance of something new (often technology). Bluetooth technology springs to mind.

Jeroen

[latentpotential]

This is awesome. Hopefully, there will now be R&D at large manufacturers where they may try to improve on the technology aspect of the Electric car, and hopefully some startup-innovators will also take this up and try to get something new to market. This is not easy, but look at SpaceX (Elon Musk is a founder here as well) and how they are on their way to revolutionize the space travel segment.

[rohanjf]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

No, it is nothing revolutionary as such. Has happened before in other industries as well.

It has happened in auto industry too, right? Volve patented the 3 point seatbelt system and then made it open source. Now this technology continues to save millions of lives every year (not so much in India because fools are in a hurry to die )

Hopefully, this move by Tesla will save millions of lives through reduced pollution. I believe that it is more environment-friendly and efficient to produce electricity from 1 litre of diesel at a dedicated plant and then use that electricity to run the car, than directly run the car with 1 litre of diesel. But that's a different topic for a different (already-existing) thread.

[phamilyman]

Basically after the debacle of Fisker, they realized they can grow if the market grows. There's little value being #1 in a niche market - they can grow by growing the market - a slightly lesser share of a bigger pie than own a very small pie.

They're after the ecosystem this time. Smart move.

Unless the chinese catch up and do a solar industry here with govt funding/support.

[srivatsahg]

First of all its definitely a great move by Tesla motors. Rather than being embroiled with patent infringement related law suits in the future with competitors, they are better off improving the existing electro hybrid automotive eco-system something similar to what Google did after acquiring Android.

[igybeck]

Elon Musk is a rockstar. Only few people can genuinely make the world, a better place to live and at the same time make a earning out of it. Such a good move. Hope, its brings technical sharing among manufacturers.

[prakhar1998]

Very good move Tesla. Now, let's see if the giants can optimally use these revolutionary technologies and create better, and more reliable electric vehicles, This could be groundbreaking news for the car market.

[samyakmodi]

great move by tesla

and this time - I am sure this move will benefit the entire world much more than what tesla will achieve.


have been quiet seriously considering the tesla model s - but then i am not sure whether they will make it in RHD too. had written to them a few days ago - yet to get a reply

[manu220194]

Great move by Tesla!
Such initiatives are akin to a step forward towards the future!
Hoping for some major EV dominance in the Indian market in the next 5-10 years! (Should help reduce the pollution)

Hoping Tesla enters India soon too!

[DDIS]

Great move.

2 billion cars worldwide. 100 million cars sold each year. Tesla has been able to sell (and will be able to sell, in the near future) less than one percent of it per year. To accelerate mass production and acceptance, this seems like a good move.

This, hopefully should result in faster innovation and improvisation in tech due to money and willingness poured in.

These things apart, he has talked about people taking the inertia of global climate change too lightly. Without speeding up of measures to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, we might be left with very little to salvage in the near future.

Sample -

Not sure its a coincidence that North India has its worst heat wave in 60 years (as per what I saw on BBC when flipping through channels) and parts of Andhra Pradesh have seen highest temperatures ever. Some places touching 50 degrees 27 deaths in the past 24 hours.
In all these cases the max temperatures have been anywhere between 5 to 9 degrees above normal.

Uh, sorry if I digressed too much. Just a point before I finish this post, I think the line "No more patents from Tesla" wont completely be true. Because they will be filing patents as and when they come up with something and after successful filing, make it free to use for everyone.

There are about 200+ patents that have been filed by Tesla and are yet to be passed. People also feel that Tesla will be holding major tech secrets to themselves. These will never be filed as patents.

Originally Posted by samyakmodi

have been quiet seriously considering the tesla model s - but then i am not sure whether they will make it in RHD too. had written to them a few days ago - yet to get a reply

Where do you live right now? I am assuming India. Its release in India seems distant to me :(

[arpanjha]

No doubt its a great & bold move by Tesla, whatever be the hidden or well thought motives behind this(if any). As citizens of this planet, we must be very grateful to Tesla having done this, because countries like India, where I dont think Tesla had immediate plans of selling their cars or even Leaf, we shall benefit a lot from this if our manufacturers pick this up, for example Mahindra Reva, having huge resources, we can now expect more and more practical green vehicles available on the market to ourselves. Also it would be highly appreciated if foreign biggies like Toyota or GM which had previously planned electric Spark, they do something and help us get some of these future sustainable developments done.