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  • Elon Musk & Tesla Omnibus Thread

    All Our Patent Are Belong To You | Blog | Tesla Motors

    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.
    "Draft beer, not people."

  • #2
    My uneducated guess is that they want more electric cars on the road to increase the demand for infrastructure building, like charging stations and the such.
    All those who are merciful with the cruel will come to be cruel to the merciful.
    -Talmud Kohelet Rabbah, 7:16.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Triple C View Post
      My uneducated guess is that they want more electric cars on the road to increase the demand for infrastructure building, like charging stations and the such.
      It's a good PR stunt. Noone wants their patents anyway ;)
      No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

      To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

      Comment


      • #4
        Open source is always better than closed source, as it means many more people can join in on the creating and manufacturing process, bringing more expertise to the table, creating a better product. Crowdsourcing is the way of the future, and Tesla seems to have learned this lesson and acted upon it.
        Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

        Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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        • #5
          A patent offers for the vast majority of the inventors zero protection.
          Most of them do not have the money to sue multinationals for years, especially foreign multinationals backed by their government.

          What keeps your invention safe from competition is often more along the lines of.
          - The product you manufacture is so extremely difficult to make that it makes more sense to buy it from you. (Not worth the hassle)
          - There is a secret to making your product work / manufacture cannot be reverse engineered easily copied.
          In this case a patent is not smart, because in a patent you have to "explain" how things work.

          IMHO an empty gesture.

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          • #6
            I'll be impressed when Tesla stops taking subsidies from the government.
            "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

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            • #7
              Tesla Model 3 unveiled!

              The $35,000 Tesla Model 3 in pictures

              The Tesla Model 3 is here — sort of. It won't actually ship to the thousands of customers with preorders until late 2017, but we finally have our first look at it, even if Elon Musk says this is just Part 1 of the Tesla Model 3 story. Part 2 is yet to come.

              Tesla says the car will go more than 215 miles on a charge and will start at $35,000, though it will be possible to run the price much higher with added options.

              Now what we care about is what the Model 3 actually looks like. Here are a selection of images from Tesla, the livestream from this evening, and Verge Deputy Editor Chris Ziegler, who is braving the crowds on the ground at the Tesla event.

              And if you missed Tesla CEO Elon Musk's Model 3 presentation, it's not too late to watch the whole thing — or just watch the Model 3 race around a track. That's pretty cool too.

              [ATTACH]41273[/ATTACH]
              Attached Files

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              • #8
                According to NPR, after Federal tax credits, you could get the price down as low as $27,500. The bad news? The cars won't be available for delivery until 2017.

                A Tesla For The Masses? Orders For Model 3 Top 100K In First Hours
                "There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more." -Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge

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                • #9
                  I want....oh how I WANT!!
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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                  • #10
                    My next car will be a Tesla. I will give them 5 years to sort out any first gen issues.

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                    • #11
                      The feelgood about having one wrt environment is 0.
                      No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                      To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Why?

                        The feelgood about sticking it to OPEC and Russians is maximal :D
                        Those who know don't speak
                        He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

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                        • #13
                          Coal is scarce, too
                          No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                          To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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                          • #14
                            Coal for producing energy is less damaging.Besides,electricity can be produced in gazillion ways.
                            Tbh,range is still an issue.350km is less than half my Civic can go.
                            Battery tech still needs another generation of evolution to be able to dominate over classical engines.
                            If I'd had the talent and not be busy with something else,I'd try to create conversion kits from CE to EV.Tesla cars still seem a bit behind traditional companies when it comes to interior design.A BMW 8 Series with Tesla performance and engine ... :D
                            Those who know don't speak
                            He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

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                            • #15
                              Tesla Model 3

                              Guess who was dumb enough to stand in line for 2.5 hours at the Tesla store on March 31st?
                              "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

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