Tesla Opens Its Patents To Boost Electric Car Adoption

Good call :wink:
I'm a shareholder, however, I still like this decision. There is a huge revenue stream that Elon is omitting here, but there's also a huge potential upside for making charging stations ubiquitous. If only the other manufacturers will take up the offer....

StephenM said:

Good call :wink:
I'm a shareholder, however, I still like this decision. There is a huge revenue stream that Elon is omitting here, but there's also a huge potential upside for making charging stations ubiquitous. If only the other manufacturers will take up the offer....

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What I find ironic about this, is they would have to make a car that would take advantage of it, and I doubt they will. And part of the underlining genius of this is they would need to go AT LEAST 200 miles at this point to utilize the stations! So the car companies would have to A) Make a LONG RANGE vehicle and B) at least make it compelling due to the natural higher cost of a large range vehicle.

He has created more possibility for competition by doing this. I wonder if Tesla will gain royalties from using the actual tech though.

Bardlebee said:

What I find ironic about this, is they would have to make a car that would take advantage of it, and I doubt they will. And part of the underlining genius of this is they would need to go AT LEAST 200 miles at this point to utilize the stations! So the car companies would have to A) Make a LONG RANGE vehicle and B) at least make it compelling due to the natural higher cost of a large range vehicle.

He has created more possibility for competition by doing this. I wonder if Tesla will gain royalties from using the actual tech though.

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Building an EV with a 200 mi range is of no value without a fast charging infrastructure. If a fast charging infrastructue existed, people would buy a 200 mi EV. A 100 mi EV is good for local use and people buy them solely for that purpose.

I wonder if this is where Tesla pushes their Supercharger connector/protocol as a replacement for SAE J1772-DC CCS. They can make the argument that there are so few CCS chargers and vehicles, that it would make sense to just switch to Tesla's. That means contributing to a standards essential patent pool.

I don't see what is new here: he was alwayes "we are open to other manufacturers using SC. No one approached us"
Why would they approach now?

WarpedOne said:

I don't see what is new here: he was alwayes "we are open to other manufacturers using SC. No one approached us"
Why would they approach now?

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My understanding is that before they would be willing to sell licenses. This sounds much more open, although Tesla would still expect manufacturers that take advantage of this to help out with costs of the network.

I can only imagine that GM is considering making strong strategic moves. Mary is a new CEO. Can she lead?

MY early morning bleary-eyed first thoughts are these:

To the extent there is take-up on this offer,

1. Short-term, TM benefits less than it would were it to have kept the SpC protocol in-house;

2. Long-term, TM benefits more as it is well positioned as a vehicle manufacturing corp to rise with the tide that lifts all EVs;

3. TM is and likely will remain rather uninterested in extending the SpC grid deep into Canada....and on throughout Alaska. ANYTHING that brings Superchargers here is something that gets my personal vote, even if my shares don't rise as much (short-term) as they otherwise would.

They would have to install 1000's of SC, I think Tesla will have a hard time just keeping up with it own production. You would defeat the purpose of having superchargers if other manufactures could use them.

But Merrill, of course part of the tit-for-tat would be that others assist in the build-out.

AudubonB said:

But Merrill, of course part of the tit-for-tat would be that others assist in the build-out.

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Yes, and I think overall it would help get over the hump of getting people off gasoline. But, would this be a separate build out for other than Tesla's. I know I'm a bit selfish about overcrowding at the superchargers and still wonder as the amount of Tesla's increase that there will be enough stations to accommodate everyone.

Jackl1956 said:

I can only imagine that GM is considering making strong strategic moves. Mary is a new CEO. Can she lead?

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If the public quotes I've read are any indication, Ms. Barra is old school to the bone, raised on fossil fuel fumes, and has no desire to get into the EV business. Besides, she's sort of got her hands full right now with other matters.

AudubonB said:

But Merrill, of course part of the tit-for-tat would be that others assist in the build-out.

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And pay 2,000 per car to gain lifetime free access to the supercharger network. To me this is brilliant, and should be welcomed by all shareholders. Not only this grows the EV "pie", this is also analogous to selling cheap printers and then making money selling ink. Brilliant.

WarpedOne said:

I don't see what is new here: he was alwayes "we are open to other manufacturers using SC. No one approached us"
Why would they approach now?

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Yes, the engadget article merely speculates about Elton's hint at the shareholders meeting, it doesn't provide any new information. We of course can speculate as well, but the fact remains that Elon has only hinted at perhaps a relaxation of access to Tesla technology, he hasn't actually stated what the requirements for access might be.

Larry

vgrinshpun said:

And pay 2,000 per car to gain lifetime free access to the supercharger network. To me this is brilliant, and should be welcomed by all shareholders. Not only this grows the EV "pie", this is also analogous to selling cheap printers and then making money selling ink. Brilliant.

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I agree. Not only will it be good for stockholders but it does satisfy TM's, and Elon's personal, mission statement to accelerate EVs. I was actually relieved to hear this is the 'sharing' he was referring to at the stockholder's meeting. I was worried that they were going to share the 'secret sauce' behind their battery pack construction.

AlMc said:

I agree. Not only will it be good for stockholders but it does satisfy TM's, and Elon's personal, mission statement to accelerate EVs. I was actually relieved to hear this is the 'sharing' he was referring to at the stockholder's meeting. I was worried that they were going to share the 'secret sauce' behind their battery pack construction.

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"Relieved" is exactly the word to describe how I felt as well. We just need sometimes remind ourselves not to loose trust in Elon's intentions and capabilities.

TM is indeed "purpose driven" company. The profit, however, is not neglected - there will be no achieving the purpose without healthy profit...

Tesla will open up its Supercharger patents to boost electric car adoption

It's another genius move from Elon.

It is in line with the Tesla Motors mission statement and makes the company look good.

It gives a real incentive to other manufacturers to make real long range EVs since the Superchargers are only useful to 200 mile plus range EVs.

It eliminates the chicken/egg problem of "no point in making an EV for road trips because there is no truly fast charging and...no point in building a fast charging network because there are no long range EVs".

It can drive the industry towards standardizing on the Tesla charging system. All other chargers are too slow for long distance travel and are only really useful for charging all day at work or overnight at home. But that isn't enough for full EV adoption, the naysayers love to use the argument that charging is "too slow to be useful". The Tesla system disproves that, but then they say "well but Teslas are just for rich people". Imagine if "city/commuter" EVs with small batteries could Supercharge they could charge to 90% in 10 minutes. Then city dwellers without a home parking space and plug outlet could charge on their way to work or way home.

There is one major problem this move by Elon doesn't solve: even if other manufacturers want to build long range EVs where are they going to get the batteries? Even Tesla is somewhat battery constrained this year. According to Elon at the recent shareholders meeting, Tesla recently turned down a high volume battery supply request from Toyota because Tesla has no spare battery capacity.

I think Mercedes and Toyota want to build long range EVs using the Tesla drivetrain but Tesla is unable to supply them with batteries and they have no other sources to go to for high volume battery supply. So they are staying with compliance EVs for now, or in the case of Toyota, fool cells.

Of course Tesla is building the Gigafactory to alleviate battery supply constraints especially for Gen III production. I fully expect Gigafactory #2 to start construction (not just groundbreaking) before #1 is fully ramped up.

Merrill said:

They would have to install 1000's of SC, I think Tesla will have a hard time just keeping up with it own production. You would defeat the purpose of having superchargers if other manufactures could use them.

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I think that you have touched on Elon's motivation for hinting at this relaxation. If Tesla is successful in their production targets they will be increasing the number of Teslas competing for Superchargers by more than an order of magnitude. Can Tesla increase the installation of Supercharger stations by more than an order of magnitude without help?

Larry

Think about if someone like Shell picked this up. Understanding that electricity will become at least some part of US transportation, installing one supercharger at every gas station. You wouldn't need to plan around spc but simply look for a shell (or whatever). I assume they would charge for the charge (pun intended) but it's still 10 bucks to fill up, not 60+.