Tesla does something great for both itself and the electric car movement.

[Dinner]

It just made all of its patents open source and public domain. The traditionalists are saying "Why would they do that, they're going to lose out on millions in potential royalties" but the reality is the lack of common standards are slowing down the adoption of electric car technology, there are several different standards for batteries, for charging stations, and for just about everything else. The reality is today everything is going to unified into one open source standard for the electric car industry and that's going to mean the adoption of the technology will get a big boost while Tesla as a company will be very well positioned because it is already making everything to these new standards. I really love it when I see innovators taking the long view like this, helping the whole industry get adopted, instead of always just miserly looking after their own short term interests. In the long run this will be very good for Tesla as a company even if it gets a smaller slice of a much bigger pie.

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you

[ZEE]

I think we all know why I'm here.

Tradition.

[Sava]

So now everyone can build cost-prohibitive douche mobiles!

[The Mad Monk]

.

[Sava]

I wouldn't mind those little buggies.

My problem is more with the accepted practice of "hey buy this thing that instantly drops half its value when you drive it off the lot and in ten years it's junk"

It makes no difference to me if it's gas in the tank or a plug in the wall. Just improve the economics. I don't want the new boss to be the same as the old boss.

My GM plug in POS can kill me just as much as the gas version.

[-Jrabbit]

Personally, I think this is pretty cool.

Presumably, the company is run by intelligent adults who have a compelling business case for this action.

it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.

We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.

Or, it could just be a bunch of highly privileged hippies...

[Ben Kenobi]

Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis

[C0ckney]

cool, good on telsa. hopefully this will encourage the electric car industry.

[Elok]

My wife can't understand why I get so excited about Teslas.

"C'mon, honey, this is a car that gets so much torque, it does 0-60 in 4.2 seconds without gears! Intrinsically superior to internal combustion in every way, once battery issues are resolved! So sturdy that it broke the machine the safety testers tried to use to break it! The tech is getting cheaper and better at astonishing speeds! This is HUGE!"

"(sigh) This is one of those guy things, isn't it?"

[Hauldren Collider]

Electric cars would be a lot more appealing to me if they didn't take all day to charge.

[Elok]

Tesla's superchargers will purportedly give you a half-charge in half an hour.

[Hauldren Collider]

Yeah but Sunoco's pumps will give me a full charge in 5 minutes, and I only have to charge once every two weeks.

[Sava]

They should charge for premium charging.

Just wait. It'll happen.

[regexcellent]

When Megaupload starts making cars.

[MrFun]

People deriding electric cars today, remind of people in the first decade of 1900's deriding the first cars.

"Cars?? Ha! They'll never replace the horse carriage."