VFR800 Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you June 12, 2014 All Our Patent Are Belong To You By Elon Musk, CEO Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology. Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology. When I started out with my first company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. And maybe they were good long ago, but too often these days they serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors. After Zip2, when I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible. 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. At best, the large automakers are producing electric cars with limited range in limited volume. Some produce no zero emission cars at all. Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day. We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform. Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard. 1 Quote Link to comment
ggzilla Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 How does this affect Datsun owners? Does it makes our cars obsolete? 1 Quote Link to comment
]2eDeYe Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 Their cars use just as much carbon as any other car....you just don't see it come out of the tailpipe. Actually my Datsun probably uses less.... I wouldn't be so quick to let just anyone use my patents either. 1 Quote Link to comment
MicroMachinery Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 I guess I should patent all their ideas then. Profit. 2 Quote Link to comment
Tristin Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 Their cars use just as much carbon as any other car....you just don't see it come out of the tailpipe. Truth. There are a ton of carbon emissions in the production of batteries for these cars... I'd say it's lower per car based on the lifetime of a gasoline vehicle, but it's still not "zero." I know Tesla mentioned that they were going to slow the creative process on their vehicles and divert a lot of attention to the production of batteries. They were suppose to build a giant battery manufacturer of their own in Europe somewhere. The last real piece to the electric car is the crappy battery life. No one wants to stop every 200mi to charge their battery in a mostly non-existent charging station. Quote Link to comment
Rhapakatui Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 I think you guys are pointing out the same problems that Tesla is trying to address. If they spend time and money filing and then fighting patent infringement lawsuits, they might make a little extra cash off of someone who's button looks too similar to theirs, but they'd do a huge disservice to the industry they're trying to make mainstream (electric cars). They still hold their patents, and you can't just claim you made it up years after they were already using the tech. They just don't care if you want to build a car exactly the same as theirs. Hopefully, along the way you'll find some inefficiency that they missed and they can fix it too. Meanwhile, the time that could have been spent inspecting competitors cars looking for similar widgets will be used making new whatsits that may help make electric cars into something useful. I can totally respect that. Who knows, I may be helping my kid do an electric swap into one of my old Datsuns one day to make it able to keep up when my old v6 swap is too outdated and slow. 4 Quote Link to comment
izzo Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 I think you guys are pointing out the same problems that Tesla is trying to address. If they spend time and money filing and then fighting patent infringement lawsuits, they might make a little extra cash off of someone who's button looks too similar to theirs, but they'd do a huge disservice to the industry they're trying to make mainstream (electric cars). They still hold their patents, and you can't just claim you made it up years after they were already using the tech. They just don't care if you want to build a car exactly the same as theirs. Hopefully, along the way you'll find some inefficiency that they missed and they can fix it too. Meanwhile, the time that could have been spent inspecting competitors cars looking for similar widgets will be used making new whatsits that may help make electric cars into something useful. I can totally respect that. Who knows, I may be helping my kid do an electric swap into one of my old Datsuns one day to make it able to keep up when my old v6 swap is too outdated and slow. This! Good for them using open source patents. They are encouraging people to use it. Modify it. Make it better. And be creative. Look what it's done for android. Linux, bsd etc. Being opened minded instead of closed is great. Just think of all the neat and useful things that will come of it. All the shit ideas nobody likes Just fades out... 3 Quote Link to comment
tr8er Posted June 13, 2014 Report Share Posted June 13, 2014 Their cars use just as much carbon as any other car....you just don't see it come out of the tailpipe. Actually my Datsun probably uses less.... I wouldn't be so quick to let just anyone use my patents either. Assuming the tesla is charged with solar or some renewable, I'd expect this to be wrong after 40 years of driving. I could be wrong though. Every tesla and Leaf driver I know (around 10) has a PV system on their house. It's the only way to make sense of that price tag. 1 Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.