Tesla Motors goes Open Source

In a surprising move, Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted this entry on the company’s official blog, explaining Tesla’s motivation in removing all patents that were initially obtained to protect the electric car manufacturer’s technology.

In his official statement, Elon Musk goes on record saying: “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.”.

Tesla’s motivation is indeed well founded and justified by the noble ideal of going against a trend of stifled innovation.

Other companies, like Apple and Google have been releasing statements in the direction of patent reform, which is an indication of the potential for a slow, but radical change in the way technology companies will behave in the future. However, Tesla is in a unique position, in respect to other tech companies, which allows it to not be overly worried about patent wars:

“The unfortunate reality is...” Musk elaborates, “... 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.”

While this is true, the market, as Elon himself explains, is enormous, counting over 100 million new vehicles being produced every year, which puts a partition between the very technology of sustainable transportation, and the current fossil-fuel dependent industry. This position is unique, as Tesla, along with other manufacturers, is able to develop new technologies, and release them to the market at a faster pace than in any other comparable manufacturing field.

By such token, it’s easy to envision a future in which sustainable transportation becomes competitive on a global scale, even if such scenario might be decades away from happening.