Recently Tesla Motors has taken a bold step by offering its patents on charging technology to rivals. Henry Foy writes an excellent article in the Financial Times about the possibilities of collaboration. That article is followed by a blog by Matt McFarland in the Washington Post about how overrated patents can be.
Electric car groups eye collaboration over charging technology
Three of the world’s biggest electric-car makers are interested in collaborating on charging technology, following Tesla Motors’ decision to offer its patents to rivals in an attempt to promote the low-emission vehicles.
Nissan and BMW, two of Tesla’s main competitors, are keen on talks with the US carmaker to co-operate on charging networks, sources at the three companies told the Financial Times.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk last week said that he would allow rivals to use any of Tesla’s patents for free, a day after meeting with BMW executives to discuss the future of the electric-car market.
Mr Musk said that he hoped the unprecedented move would precipitate “a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform”.
Consumer fears over the ease of recharging electric vehicles have been a major stumbling block for the vehicles, which use various different chargers, plug types and power standards across geographies and brands.
Nissan, BMW and Tesla are keen to collaborate on creating possible global vehicle-charging standards, the sources said.
“It is obviously clear that everyone would benefit if there was a far more simple way for everyone to charge their cars,” said one executive, who declined to be named as the plans are not yet official.
Between them, Nissan, the world’s biggest electric-car manufacturer, BMW and Tesla account for about 80 per cent of the world’s battery electric-car sales.
Tesla has risen from an ambitious San Francisco start-up to account for about a quarter of the world’s electric-car market, and defy naysayers at some of the world’s largest carmakers that said that the vehicles were not commercially viable.
But while Tesla’s Model S car and Nissan’s market-leading Leaf, which commanded almost 50 per cent of the global market last year, have sold well in markets such as California and Norway, a lack of charging infrastructure and customer fears over refuelling the cars has held back demand in other markets.
“It is obviously clear that everyone would benefit if there was a far more simple way for everyone to charge their cars”
Billionaire entrepreneur Mr Musk, who has said the success of electric cars is more important to him than Tesla’s individual success, hopes that his decision to make Tesla’s patents freely available will spur rivals to share their technology.
BMW, which has invested heavily in its electric i range, said that it and Tesla were “strongly committed to the success of electro-mobility”, and used their meeting to discuss ways to “further strengthen” the global electric-vehicle market.
BMW was informed of Mr Musk’s patent decision at the Wednesday meeting, but both companies stressed that the meeting’s timing was coincidental.
“Nissan welcomes any initiative to expand the volumes of electric vehicles,” the Japanese manufacturer said. “Nissan is the market leader in EVs and has worked with other manufacturers to help proliferate the technology.”
Tesla has worked with other carmakers in the past to help them develop electric cars, and has supplied batteries to Toyota and Mercedes-Benz’s owner Daimler. Both carmakers are shareholders in Mr Musk’s company.
How bold was Tesla’s move to free its patents?
Patents can be overrated. Tesla raised some eyebrows with a surprising decision not to initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who in good faith wants to use its technology. But Tesla chief executive Elon Musk might actually be making a shrewd and low-risk move. Via the Harvard Business Review:
The first thing to note is that Tesla is not truly giving away its secret sauce, the source of its competitive advantage. “There’s a lot of thinking in the research these days on the gap between the codified knowledge that is patentable and gets disclosed versus tacit knowledge that really exists in how you actually produce,” says Orly Lobel, a law professor at the University of San Diego specializing in intellectual property. “That gap is probably relevant in this market.”
A Tesla vehicle is quite literally more valuable than the sum of the parts, even when the value of the patented technology is included. “They have this sexy car that people are increasingly liking,” says Lobel. “It’s something different from just the aggregation of the knowledge in the patents.”
That thinking is echoed by Alberto Galasso, another IP expert at the University of Toronto, who put it this way: “A patent on a great technology is worth nothing if there is no threat of imitation.” Access to the patents doesn’t ensure that a competitor can execute on an equally innovative product.
Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 