Elon Musk has always been a rebel. Now he’s an open source rebel.
While many in Silicon Valley have railed against patent wars in recent years, and some have lobbied Washington to reform patent law, Tesla’s taking an unprecedented step of opening all its electric car patents to outside use.

“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.”Musk lamented that most major auto manufacturers have EVs that aren’t attractive to consumers due to their limited range, if they have EVs at all. With 100 million new vehicles hitting the roads every year, Musk believes there is plenty of room for everyone manufacturing EVs to thrive.
