Tesla Opens its Patents, Will now Offer Technologies for Free
After more than a decade spent jealously keeping their discoveries to themselves, Tesla Motors just opened their patent books. From now on, anyone looking to build an electric car will be able to use the Californian manufacturer’s advancements for free.
The announcement was made yesterday by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors. According to him, even if the patents were giving his company technical superiority in the market, they slowed the advancement of the electric car as a whole. He thus prefers to give all manufacturers an equal chance to build a clean vehicle.
When Tesla was launched, Elon thought that patenting its technologies was vital in order to make sure that the bigger automakers would not use his discoveries and mass-produce them to put him out of business. However, after more than a decade, he saw that this had no chance of happening: less than 1% of new vehicles sold are electric, and manufacturers couldn’t care less. Since Tesla doesn’t have the means of producing millions of cars each year, this is the best they can do to diminish the car’s carbon footprint.
Once again, Tesla just proved that they were not in it for the money, but that they are genuinely trying to save the planet.