Tesla opens its patents for everyone to share EV knowledge

By Michael Karkafiris

Motor Industry

13 June 2014 10:43

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and one of the most talked-about personalities in the automotive industry, announced today that his company has opened all of its patents to make way for the competition to catch up and promote electric mobility for a wider audience.

Open-sourcing your patents is a rather unusual strategy in the automotive world but Musk says that ‘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.’

Tesla originally filed for patents to protect itself from the big manufacturers which it feared may copy its technology and overwhelm the US brand, but the reality proved that this wasn’t the case, says Musk; many big players have small to non-existent electric car programmes and the total volume of electric car sales represents less than 1% of total volumes.

Worldwide, 100 million new cars are produced every year and Musk claims he wants to encourage the take-up of EVs on a wider scale. ‘It is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis,’ said Musk. ‘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’.

Earlier this week, Tesla announced its plans to establish a Supercharger fast-charge network in the UK as it launched its first station in London’s Royal Victoria Docks.
The company says that within the next 18 months, customer will be able to travel the length of the UK and Ireland for free using the Supercharger network. Note that only Tesla models are eligible to charge up for zero cost currently.

Claimed to be one of the most powerful charging technologies available, Superchargers provide up to 120KW of direct current to the Model S battery. The company claims that 20 minutes is enough to achieve a 50% battery top up.  ‘By the end of this year, we expect you will be able to travel almost anywhere in Europe using only Superchargers,’ Musk said.

By Michael Karkafiris