Tesla Motors: All our Patents Belong to You

With the launch of Model-X Tesla Motors is again in the headlines. For those who do not know what Tesla Motors is, let me give a quick introduction. Tesla Motors is an automobile company making Electric Vehicles founded in 2003 by Elon Musk, (some people call him the greatest Entrepreneur of the world & I agree). Right now Tesla Motors is leading the world in the electric vehicle segment and quickly making its way to the top of the chart (see the pic). In terms of valuation it is already competing the Automobile giants which are around 100 years older than it. Tesla Motors launched its first prototype in 2006 and called it Tesla Roadster which was called The Best Invention in 2006 by TIME Magazine.  Right now, Tesla has more than 50,000 vehicles on road and is giving serious competition to high end cars from Mercedes, BMW, Audi and the likes.
What has been their strategy so far? Tesla has taken the world by complete surprise. Instead of taking the normal bottom up approach, it took the Top down approach. Instead of making low cost cars for the mass market, they started making high end cars costing around $100,000 thus competing the few most expensive cars. This gave Tesla certain advantages of being able to focus on quality instead of cost.
But these things are not the most important things about Tesla Motors. Rather the most important thing about Tesla Motors is how it is changing the world from underneath. Tesla Motors has opened all their patents to the world in the spirit of open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology. Now that is something you do not see in the world of Manufacturing Industries. And this has been the single greatest problem that has plagued the entire core segment of engineering slowing down their growth. This step of Tesla Motors shows their guts and intentions. Tesla Motors is a startup, still way behind the Giant Automobile manufacturers and has still not reached break-even. The one thing they have is their patents in the electric vehicle technology which demarcates them from other companies like Nissan (Leaf), BMW (i3) & Ford (Focus Electric). While these companies are still trying to make a feasible car with 100-200 km in single charge, Tesla motors is already making cars that go 400+ km in single charge. And suddenly they open all their patents to their competitors.
The CEO Elon Musk feels that the competition of Tesla Motors is not from other automobile manufacturers who are trying to replace them but the competition is from millions of ICE cars which are rolling out in the market every year and fastly deteriorating the climate. He is not too concerned about losing the market but what concerns him is that all the automobile manufacturers, instead of fighting with each other can actually work together to create a better future for us. Now, that is not something you do not see or everyday (or even in a decade) in the manufacturing industry.
So you might be thinking that Elon Musk is benevolent, more of a saint than a businessman. You are wrong. Those who have observed this open source movement in the field of computer science, they know one fact very clearly. If your competitors start following you and your ideas, they have already taken you to be the leader. And Elon Musk understands this. He also knows that, by creating competition for themselves, they are going to remain at the top of the chart by pushing a little harder.
This is, as you might have understood by now, one big eye opener for the automobile manufacturers and in general the entire core segment of industries who have till now kept on safeguarding their patents from each other instead of collaboratively work for development. This has been the Tragedy of core segment of Engineering. Let us learn from Elon Musk himself how to change the world from underneath.