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Musk Will Open Up Tesla Supercharger Patents To Spur Development
redletterdave (2493036) writes "Elon Musk has said repeatedly he wants to 'do something controversial' with Tesla's collection of electric car patents, but he finally offered specifics at the UK launch of his Tesla Model S on Sunday. The Tesla Motors CEO said he would like to open up the designs for his Supercharger systems — the free fast-charging stations designed to quickly refuel Tesla's electric cars — to create a standard for other car makers to use. Musk previously said he didn't want Superchargers to become a 'walled garden.'"
... a very smart man.
well done.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The real interesting technology is going to be in the batteries. The chargers will be a place where he would invite competition and exploration, so long as he doesn't get hit with patent trolls (the point of retaining the patent in the first place). The chargers aren't all that interesting.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Sooner the better, last thing we need is every car manufacturer making their own version of a charger like has happened with phones and portable gadgets.
Perhaps legislation would be the best option - one type of charger technology that is unencumbered by patents or copyrights or anything, so everyone can use it and you can find a charging station that will work with your car, even if it was built by Apple.
Elon Musk wants more quick refuel infrastructure on the interstates and local roads/cities, which will advance Tesla's and others electric cars. This is not controversial but does provide probable wider support for Tesla's collection of electric car products, patents, and parts. Open up the designs for Tesla Supercharger systems — the free fast-charging stations designed to quickly refuel electric cars — creating an ISO/OASIS standard for other car makers to use makes prescient business sense.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
1. Build an electric car that's heads and shoulders above the competition.
2. Build an innovative charging infrastructure to allow for long distance driving.
3. Open up the technology for that charging infrastructure so that gas stations and the like can start getting in on the action and making some profit.
4. With charging infrastructure becoming ubiquitous, that takes away many people's concerns about buying your car.
5. Also, with charging infrastructure becoming ubiquitous, that may encourage other auto manufacturers to move past compliance cars and actually start selling quality vehicles.
6. Tout competition's success as your own success, as it's built on your platform. Competition isn't only good PR in this context, but it carries with it the subtext that electric cars are a product category that is here to stay.
To some degree, I still like the idea of plug-in hybrids for the time being. But if this "open supercharger" thing is as successful as I think it's going to be, there could be a sea change in the consumer automotive market.
The CB App. What's your 20?
This should be interesting, and should spur some development,
but...
I doubt that you could use a Tesla-like Supercharger to charge a battery other than one made by Tesla. I'm not talking about DRM, I'm talking about the architecture of the battery pack itself - its charging characteristics, its safety features, its cooling system, and so on down to the level of the individual 18650 cells. Those aspects are still heavily protected - licensing and manufacturing the packs and powertrain is a side business for Tesla. So what looks like a move to open up the world could, like other standards, become a way to lock in a particular proprietary design.
I still think it's pretty cool, though. If it sheds more light on how Tesla has designed and constructed their pack, which is a fine technology, as well as directly showing ways to charge Li-Ion packs quickly, then I think this is a benefit to anyone interested in how electricity is used and stored (i.e., everyone). But I also like to keep in mind that Musk, for all his altruism, is still a capitalist and wants his vision of the future to be the one to succeed.
Who doesn't love this guy? Other than the lazy, crooked competitors he's chipping away at?
It's a nice gesture but AFAIK none of the other currently available designs can handle the amount of current that supercharger provides. Perhaps in 3-5 years when the other auto companies revamp their existing lineup with new designs they might decide to design around the supercharger 'standard' but I'm not holding my breath.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I like to imagine that Musk invented the world's best supercharger and is staring at it like "How the hell am I going to put this in an electric car?"
Electric cars are not ubiquitous because range and ability to charge is a concern. Charging stations are not ubiquitous because electric cars are not ubiquitous.
Gasoline automobiles were able to take off when they were invented because the liquid fuel infrastructure was in largely in place prior to their invention. Kerosene for lamps was distributed by metered pumps that were easily converted to dispense gasoline.
Establishing a standard charging station would allow companies to make the investment in charging infrastructure, confident that it would be widely applicable to different vehicles and would not disappear overnight. When you can pull into the CircleK and purchase a few kWh of juice while grabbing a burrito, that's when electric cars will really take off.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Tesla isn't just a car company, they are a technology firm. The *real* value of Tesla (hence the stock price) is in the technology they own and control.
If Teslas chargers become "the standard", then the rest of the world will likely have to license Tesla's other technology to be compatible. This is akin to; anyone can build an ARM-based chip, but you have to license that right from the ARM group, which makes their stock (currently) more valuable then Intels.
Tesla running gear may also become the defacto standard for electric cars, and once the price drops, near unbiquitous -- which will make Musk extremely wealthy. Tesla won't have to make cars anymore, simply license the tech to everyone else to build.
They then can pour that money into more R&D and build even better and better running gear which in turn, all other manufacturers will need to license to keep up with the competition.... Which of course, will keep them very wealthy.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
"It was also the only car to ever receive a 99 out of 10 from Consumer Reports"
The Mode S is so good that it broke the scale by a factor of 10!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Supercharging sites they can afford to slowly build out. They do not lose money with these charging stations; the one I've seen was clearly a smart move. They bought the land around the charging station as well --- now something is being built upon it! The SMART move is to buy the space put in the chargers; make them free-- then RENT the commercial space around the charger! You make $$ either way.
Fast charging still can hold the customer long enough to buy some junk while waiting. Slower charging means the customer has to wait 10s of minutes... and buy more or eat a meal...
It is not pro-business to allow others to lure customers in with their charging stations when your proprietary ones make you money. Sure, long term being open helps; but that isn't modern business thinking.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Will they?
Assuming a large transformation of the auto fleet to electric, will supercharging stations show up everywhere?
Will recharging, especially high-current recharging, be free everywhere?
I would assume that someone has to pay for bringing in the half-megawatt of power required to charge 20-some cars at the same time. I don't know, but I assume this might be non-trivial in a lot of places or require the power company to upgrade service to make this happen.
And I also assume that the electricity wouldn't be free, someone will be paying for that somehow, too.
Gas is gas.
Electricity needs to be electricity. There can't be "Telsa" electricity and "everyone else" electricity. People have to be able to pull into any charging station with any car. He knows this, and he also knows that attempting to create a "walled garden" of charging would be the end of him and his company.
By doing this now, he gets to look like a hero when in reality his aspirations of a Tesla-only charging grid have failed spectacularly.
This general attitude is why Tesla is such a disruptive force, and why the rest of the automotive market and their ilk hate them. I for one am happy to see the status quo get genuinely threatened for a change.
the free fast-charging stations designed to quickly refuel Tesla's electric cars
Sure, if electrons are "fuel".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
In most, not sure if all, cases Tesla didn't buy the land for the charging station. The land owner agrees to let Tesla locate the charger for free for 5 to 10 years. Tesla pays to install and maintain the charger and pay for electricity usage. The land owner theoretically gets extra business from Tesla owners.
http://insideevs.com/tech-crunch-what-it-takes-to-be-a-tesla-supercharger-partner/
So even better than buying the land, Tesla gets to use it for free.
A cynical PR ploy would be GM doing live demonstrations electrocuting stray dogs and rogue elephants to warn the public to the dangers of Tesla superchargers.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So Gingrich is wrong when he asserts that patents fuel innovation, in drugs for example.
Electricity is dead cheap.
A full charge cost a lot less than the equivalent range in gaz.
Tesla will probably center around a different model to attract customers.
One very possible model would be for Telsa to keep the charging either free or with only a small monthly/yearly fee, and earn most of the money through the services next to the station. (The charging is going to last up to 30 minutes any way. The driver and passenger are very likely going to take some time eating or drinking something).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
My dream of seeing a Tesla with a supercharger sticking out of the hood were ruined by the idiocy of me thinking an electric car would need a supercharger, and by this article. Mostly by this article though.
Well after reading a bit on-line, it seems that they have a business model running a bit differently:
- they "almost give-out" the charging station to terrain owner (owner of highway shop/gaz-station, etc.)
- the owner only has to supply electricity (and as said electricity is cheap)
- in exchange, the owner gets an increased traffic in the shop/restraurant
(people, who have 10 to 30 minute to kill until full charge and buy food/drinks).
In that context, it's in the land owner's best interest to have a open technology in the charging stations:
- the more open the standard, the more different drivers can stop to charge, and thus the more customers.
And Tesla in turn has a small advantage too:
- the more shop/restaurant along the highway are likely to rent such stations, the more charging spots there are going to be overall, and the less potential customer will be afraid by range problems.
- thus market for eletrical vehicle increase (of which Tesla has a substantial mind-share, and produce the longest-range vehicle)
- thus market for car lithium batteries increase (a field where Tesla is leading, to the point that some people want to persuade them to drop the Model S and concentrate entirely on batteries for other companies).
Or to put it differently: all this charger will need batteries to charge, and Tesla is apparently the best game in town for batteries.
(It would be as if Sanyo started to provide "free charging station" around in a country where Enloop have the strongest market penetrance)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
While you're working on it, how about a new name? "Supercharger" is already a "thing" in automobile-lingo. And yes, I know most Slashdotters may not be gear-heads, using a name of a thing that already exists is glaring to those of us who are.
Who did what now?
Both big Auto and Oil will do their best to kill innovation for US, EU .... Prior history of AC by Tesla being taken by Westinghouse, TV by Farnsworth taken by RCA many others. Just like music artist and the recording industry, innovation is corporately controlled by US/EU/WTO/... laws
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Other industries, if they fail in killing innovation (by law or tricks) and fail to change quick enough, then they are out of business. Global economic complexities would side (IMO) with an eventual (though gradual) chaos cascade of industry and power away from US, EU, CN ... to places, cultures, and laws willing to nurture innovation.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
What's to stop other automakers using the technology in the patents and deploying their stations with a different connector or proprietary signalling between the charger and car, while allowing their cars to be used at Tesla stations as well?
"Buy a Tesla and you get access to 10,000 charging stations, buy our car and you've got access to 20,000"
Honestly Gas stations count on the mini mart or garage more then the pumps for profit.
While they see small amount of added business from long distance electric car drivers, with electric cars becoming more prevalent, there will be far more Charge at home every night, no need for recharge through the day types. You can have a car outlet put into your garage/carport/front of house easily enough. No one can economically refill at home.
So conservatively, every electric car that pulls up to charge up, theres ten cars that charge up at home and no longer stop by the store for a coffe and donut while they refuel.
Yes they are going against the inevitable but the inevitable has to go through a restructuring of power grids to support it first, and well delay it a decade or two to get their kid through college is plenty of motivation.
In order for electric cars to be successful, there will need to be a lot of recharging stations all over the place to recharge your vehicles. This will be a lot more likely if you can get everyone to use the same type or recharging technology.
Apparently, people spend more time shopping when they get are plugged into a recharging station, and the store makes more than enough money to make up for the cost of the electricity.
Tesla pays to install and maintain the charger and pay for electricity usage.
So even better than buying the land, Tesla gets to use it for free.
Which is it?
Seriously, can we not have a single Musk-free day on Memedot?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Back in the day, a supercharger was a twin-stage turbine which could compress air (much like a jet engine) providing for increased power to an engine. It was independently powered, so was basically 'instant on'. Because people were cheap, they went with a non-powered, parasitic 'waste-heat' device which was far less powerful, called a 'turbo-charger'. It was not instant on: there was a well defined lag between when you wanted more power, and when it eventually came. Now the term 'Supercharger' has been hijacked by a company, and all it really means is 'reasonably quick charge'.
It's your own.
While in the UK he should have said : "Because american companies are so quick to prevent my cars from even being sold, I am opening the patents and sharing technology for all my battery tech, but only to foreign companies... If you want that to change, you know what you have to do."
Tesla gets to use the land for free.
Installation, maintenance, and electricity cost them money. But none of that money goes to the land owner. It's simply the costs they have when making the hardware, getting the hardware to the 'land', installing the hardware, maintaining the hardware, paying the power company and so on.
I would say it is even more similar to Adobe giving away PDF. Sure, the standard is out there and not capitalizable per se... but what is the majority using to view PDFs? And what is the platform of preference to author PDFs? Very smart move instead.
There are three competing DC charging standards in North America:
- The widely deployed Chademo (= 62.5 kW), backed by Japanese automakers mostly
- The upcoming, not yet deployed, CCS (= 90 kW), backed by SAE, a large number of western automakers and, increasingly, by
- Tesla's Supercharger ( = 120 kW?), which is used only by Tesla.
This is, of course, a f**king mess, which could undermine the efforts to build comprehensive charging networks.
However, it's a manageable mess.
While high power DC charging stations are expensive, having them support multiple standards adds little to the cost (5% per standard or less).
The competition between Chademo and SAE CCS looks like it will be resolved this way: AFAIK, pretty much any new DC charging station deployments looks to be dual standard.
Tesla was basically being left out. While they have built a very interesting network and they have a superior specification, they can't expect to cover all of North America with their own charging stations, while the rest of the world is using combined Chademo/CCS station.
Opening up their specification is a necessary step for them to play along with the rest of the world.
By pushing this tech, he is ensuring that not only will his approach be adopted, but it will be difficult for other car makers to go with fuel cells. And as to staying with gas/diesel, I think that once blue star is out at 35K, that will stop the sales for gas/diesel. The reason is that if you can get a decent car/X-over at 35-40K, and have next to no costs in driving, well, most buyers are not fools.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
wow. Tesla is the only car maker with months of back logs on cars, and you think that he is desperate? Really?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.