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Tesla opens all patents to the public

That is amazingly cool. They topped it off with an "all your base" reference too. LOL! Well played Elon, well played indeed.
 
Sometimes it makes good business sense to not be an island of proprietary technology. By others adopting some of your technology to further market acceptance of your product. More products on the market based on your technology means better service offerings for your customers; lower cost parts; more electric refueling stations, etc.

I just drove one of these for the first time on Wednesday. What an incredible car. Its a dream to drive. 0-60 in about 5 seconds.
 
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All Our Patent Are Belong To You | Blog | Tesla Motors

Interesting. Good or bad, I have to admire Musk's tolerance for taking big risks and shoving all the chips in.

This is such a big deal on so many levels that I have no idea where to start or what to say. It has the potential to be a great move for Tesla in that it will surely open the market to more consumers, and advance the tech to reduce the cost to everyone including Tesla, so it's potentially a great fiscal decision. From a PR standpoint... well... it's obviously a good move. Environmental folks should live this. Alternative energy folks just got a shot in the arm toward making this tech more available and affordable. I don't think this was a philanthropist type move more than a very astute and calculated commercial move. No matter though. The benefit to Tesla will only be a positive to the rest of us.
 
Sometimes it makes good business sense to not be an island of proprietary technology. By others adopting some of your technology to further market acceptance of your product. More products on the market based on your technology means better service offerings for your customers; lower cost parts; more electric refueling stations, etc.

I just drove one of these for the first time on Wednesday. What an incredible car. Its a dream to drive. 0-60 in about 5 seconds.

Go look up the British Top Gear test drive of this car. They had 2 of them and neither of them were able to finish the test.
 
This is such a big deal on so many levels that I have no idea where to start or what to say. It has the potential to be a great move for Tesla in that it will surely open the market to more consumers, and advance the tech to reduce the cost to everyone including Tesla, so it's potentially a great fiscal decision. From a PR standpoint... well... it's obviously a good move. Environmental folks should live this. Alternative energy folks just got a shot in the arm toward making this tech more available and affordable. I don't think this was a philanthropist type move more than a very astute and calculated commercial move. No matter though. The benefit to Tesla will only be a positive to the rest of us.

Or it is an admission that the company is failing and they want somebody else to pick up the design and continue.
 
Go look up the British Top Gear test drive of this car. They had 2 of them and neither of them were able to finish the test.

The Top Gear was a 2008 test of the Roadster. The car was barely in production in 2008. It is now 2014, six years later... and two generations later in the world of advanced technology...

onsumer Reports gave the car (the Model S, which is the one I drove) the highest rating it ever gave a car...

Consumer Reports Gives Love To Tesla; So Does 'The Bachelor' - Forbes

You really need to be more current with your sources of information and not let old articles engrave your opinions in stone....
 
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But if it doesn't survive a 20 minutes test what good is the car? I understand they work a car pretty hard, but the brakes failed on one of them, and it wasn't the main test car.

How many problems do you think you would have with a Street versión with no dealers around to fix it?

My son recently bought an S... and drove it from Oregon to San Diego. It went the 200 promised miles.... I drove his on Wednesday.
 
My son recently bought an S... and drove it from Oregon to San Diego. It went the 200 promised miles.... I drove his on Wednesday.

Good for him. Do you mean it went the 200 miles on the charge? It is more tan 200 miles from Oregon to San Diego.
 
this seems like a great company.
 
First, what a terrible name for a car and a insult to the genius that is Nicola Tesla.

Who happens to be one of my favorite historical people.

While I was in grade school having Eddison shoved down my throat my Dad bought me a science book that talked about a guy named Nicola Tesla and his inventions.

My Dad worked for NASA as a Aeronautical engineer and helped me to understand the true genius that was Tesla and why we would should be celebrating him and
not Eddison.

First, Eddison focused solely on DC power and he was going to build DC powered Grid.

A highly inefficient grid that would have to be comprised of massive 6" diameter conductors and substations a mile apart to boost power.

Tesla invented AC induction and patented the AC induction motor AND the Induction transformer.

Which our Grids use today.

Thanks to Tesla , who was ROBBED we could run small diameter high tension cables for miles and miles and step it down at first the Sub Stations miles away and then at the buildings or homes for useful power.

So why is this DC powered car named after the inventor of whats essentially AC induction ?

Plus the technology behind the Tesla is not that difficult to understand.

Hmmm..lets see.

Thousands of Nicad powered batteries in a series parallel configuration that are fed into whats essentially a stepper motor controller that takes that DC and chops it up and outputs it into modulated square waves that are used to vary the frequency on the drive motors which are just large electronically commutated stepper motors.
 
I think it is a defensive move. GM especially has a history of anti-competitive behavior when it comes to new tech and since Tesla is under constant attack by the mainstream car companies and political sphere, then by releasing it to everyone, the chance is that the tech wont get locked away in some GM vault rotting away like so much other tech before them. It reminds me a bit like what Ralf Nader did to the collapsible steering column...expose the car companies by shaming them in public.. here Musk is making sure that the same car companies wont shut him up regardless on how much they try.
 
I just hope it doesn't come back to bite them later, business wise. Giving technology to a competitor makes them better able to compete. I really like this company and hope it sticks around.
 
But if it doesn't survive a 20 minutes test what good is the car? I understand they work a car pretty hard, but the brakes failed on one of them, and it wasn't the main test car.

How many problems do you think you would have with a Street versión with no dealers around to fix it?

Their issues with the Roadster were scripted.

They were sued for it.
 
How many problems do you think you would have with a Street versión with no dealers around to fix it?

You don't need a dealership to fix them. There are hardly any moving parts to begin with, but those that are there are nothing that can't be serviced by any auto shop and only thing that requires any sort of "regular" maintenance are the brake pads and tires, both of which can be done anywhere.
 
You don't need a dealership to fix them. There are hardly any moving parts to begin with, but those that are there are nothing that can't be serviced by any auto shop and only thing that requires any sort of "regular" maintenance are the brake pads and tires, both of which can be done anywhere.

The hell there isn't.

Thousands of nicad batteries in series parallel configuration input into a Pulse width modulation controller that out puts modulated square wave to the electronically comutated motor. The PWM is how they vary the speed of the motor and then the speed of the car.

That may sound simple, but there are tons of electronic components in that car to make it " feasible " ( no electric car is feasible ).

And there's nothing green about that car either. From the manufacture of the ni-cad batteries and their disposal to the all of the election boards, components and MASSIVE capacitor bank thats in that inverter there is more toxic about that car than a comparable internal combustion engine.

It a product of a ideological push that is more about symbolism than practicality.

I troubleshooted and repaired large inverters for industrial applications for years when I was younger and they had a habit of detonating when they lost their ability to output a single phase of PWM. Their coke can sized high voltage capacitors would then overcharge and blow the cover right off the inverter.

They're very expensive, as is the not green battery pak in that vehicle and have to be disposed of like their toxic waste.
 
First, what a terrible name for a car and a insult to the genius that is Nicola Tesla.

If it makes you feel any better, just pretend Musk named it that after the unit of magnetism instead of the guy. (although I do realize the unit is also named after the guy). It may soften the blow.
Maybe you should ask Alessandro Volta's descendents what they think of the Chevy Volt.
 
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I'd say this is unheard of. Wow.

I'd say that it's rare, not unheard of.

George Washington Carver gave all of his peanut inventions, as well as others, to the world at large. No patents for him.

And of course open source Linux has produced quite a few operating systems and numerous applications. When you deleted Microsoft office from your new computer in favor of Open Office, instead of paying the licensing free, you benefitted from someone else's hard work.

I used to think that I had a life goal of getting a patent in my name. Now I just want to come up with something that I can give to the world for free.
 
I'd say that it's rare, not unheard of.

George Washington Carver gave all of his peanut inventions, as well as others, to the world at large. No patents for him.

And of course open source Linux has produced quite a few operating systems and numerous applications. When you deleted Microsoft office from your new computer in favor of Open Office, instead of paying the licensing free, you benefitted from someone else's hard work.

I used to think that I had a life goal of getting a patent in my name. Now I just want to come up with something that I can give to the world for free.

Thank you for the information. I didn't know that.

I hope you succeed! A very noble goal.
 
Still not sure what the patents contained or exactly why he did it...but it sure sounds cool.

However, though I think Tesla's are beautiful, fantastic cars...they are purely a luxury car.

The S starts at almost $80 grand...that is useless for the masses. They stated for years before production that the S would come in around 40-50K...and now they came in at roughly double. I have little doubt if the major manufacturers wanted to built a car as good as the Tesla, they could.

But they don't want to, IMO because they HATE electric cars.

EV's (electric vehicles) have far fewer moving parts and require FAR less maintenance. And after market parts and planned obsolescence are large aspects of these corporations profits. And dealers make (apparently) about half of their profits from parts/service...so they hate electric cars even more.
That is why GM would not let anyone keep their EV-1's when the leases ran out way back when and why they crushed them all after they took them back...they hate electric vehicles and they don't want them taking off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
That is why the EV's they do sell are over priced and have incredibly short ranges. The base Tesla can do over 230 miles. Yet the best EV's only do about 60-80 miles...which are near-useless for anything but daily commuting. They are designed to appeal to a small segment, but it makes them look like they are embracing EV's...when they are not. They could increase the range of these cars if they want to (just add more batteries under the floor like Tesla does)...they clearly don't want to.

On the other hand these corporations LOVE hybrids. They have all the moving parts of a regular car plus the electric motor/batteries of an EV, so they require even more service then regular cars. They raise fuel economy which helps their CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) compliance. They make at least as much per vehicle since they can charge a premium for them. And it makes them look 'greener'. And because of the added service/parts requirements, dealers like them as well.

As long as Tesla makes luxury cars in small numbers that few can afford, I assume the big 'boys' won't care much.


Personally, I love electric cars...but until they come down to $25K (before government incentives) and can go 200 miles at least, they are, IMO, strictly for luxury buyers and/or green 'fanatics'.
 
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I find it odd they would do this. i know they want to get people to make cheaper parts but i think that would reduce quality.
tesla 3rd gen is suppose to be in the 35-40k range and their 4th gen is suppose to be cheaper.

i think tesla is having money problems. they kinda went about his backwards.

PS they do have places to get your car fixed and they also have on call tech's. they will come pick the car up while delivering a rental until they get yours fixed.
they are still building their fast charging stations across the nation.

i would like to own one but they don't build one big enough to hold my family. their model X might but not for 60k that is to far out of my budget and since i don't drive as much
anymore it isn't that big of a concern.
 
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