CEO Elon Musk says that Tesla is currently open to licensing software and supplying power trains and batteries to other automakers struggling to make electric cars.
We recently reported on automakers who admit that Tesla has an advantage in several key areas of electric vehicle development and construction.
Volkswagen has been quite open about the fact that it has lagged behind when it comes to software and that Tesla has taken the lead.
Hebert Diess, president of Volkswagen, even said that the company is implementing what he internally called the “Tesla recovery plan” to bridge the software gap between the German automaker and Tesla.
Now Tesla CEO Elon Musk said they are ready to help.
In response to those recent comments, Musk wrote on Twitter:
“Tesla is open to software licenses and the supply of powertrains and batteries. We are just trying to accelerate sustainable energy, not crush competitors! ”
The CEO even said that Tesla would be willing to license the autopilot, although he had said in the past that it would be difficult to implement.
However, there is a limit. Tesla is not going to share its fart machine technology in the car:
Tesla used to supply powertrains and batteries to Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, who used to be shareholders of Tesla, but stopped in 2015 after completing all their programs.
In 2014, Musk announced that Tesla is “openly sourcing” its patents to help other automakers accelerate the development of electric vehicles.
However, the measure has been criticized for not being “open source” in the true sense of the word, as Tesla only “promised” not to sue any company that uses its proprietary technology “in good faith”.
The difference resulted in that not many companies actually use Tesla’s proprietary technology.
The only company that openly admitted to using Tesla’s proprietary technology is the Chinese automaker Xpeng, whom Tesla ended up suing, not for the use of proprietary technology but for the alleged theft of the autopilot source code.
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I don’t think that will happen.
When Tesla stopped supplying engines and batteries to Daimler and Toyota, Elon said Tesla was limited by the supply of batteries and needed all the batteries it could get for its own production of electric vehicles.
This appears to be true today and for the foreseeable future according to Elon’s comment last week.
On the other hand, automakers should trust Tesla for them and there may be some stakeholders, but I think most automakers want to develop their own expertise in what is becoming the new life and blood of the Automotive industry.
As for the software, I don’t know what that would be like.
I know about software license agreements in the auto industry, like what Polestar has with Google’s Android, but I’m not sure that Tesla could have a similar agreement.
There is also battery management software, autopilot software, over-the-air upgrade software, and many other uses of software within automobiles.
I’d like to know what a license agreement would look like for some of those products.
What you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
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