Tesla co founder and CEO, Elon Musk, shocked the scene when he announced that all of his company’s patented EV technology will be available for all to use “in good faith.” This is an unprecedented move in and industry where secrecy and corporate grudges are still a fact of life. In doing so, Tesla seems to have attracted the interest of the two of the automakers whose progress in the field of EVs has been above average: Nissan and BMW.
The all-electric Leaf by Nissan currently holds around half of the world’s entire market for electric vehicles, though Tesla has made remarkable progress too, especially when considering the kind of resources it didn’t have at its disposal from the very start to make it happen.
The Bloomberg article details this adds that Musk’s ultimate goal is to not just share their own tech, but also have other manufacturers who can contribute actually do so. He did say he was wary of companies using Tesla tech and calling it their own, but then again, in his own words, “somebody can’t go and use a whole bunch of our patents but then sue us for using one of theirs. That seems like it wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do.”
He is convinced it won’t hurt the company in the long term.
Another article, this time from the Financial Times, goes into more detail about the BMW/Nissan/Tesla collaboration. It says that between them, the three manufacturer account for up to 80 percent of the world’s current battery-powered EVs.
The manufacturers’ main interest seems to be jointly developing charging tech – Musk wants “a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.”
An unnamed BMW exec was also quoted in the same article, alluding the same subject. He/she said: “It is obviously clear that everyone would benefit if there was a far more simple way for everyone to charge their cars.”
Over in camp Nissan, the consensus is that it “welcomes any initiative to expand the volumes of electric vehicles,” the Japanese manufacturer said. “Nissan is the market leader in EVs and has worked with other manufacturers to help proliferate the technology.”
If you want additional background on the whole Tesla-patents thing, then the Consumer Reports video posted below can fill you in.
By Andrei Nedelea
VIDEO