Tesla going open source?

[NiHaoMike]

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/tesla-open-source-all-its-patents-wont-sue-anyone-using-its-technology.html

[mtdoc]

Yeah Elon.  Awesome!

[josem]

Open source? Are they publishing the schematics, 3D models and firmware of their cars?

[free_electron]

They won't sue if anyone uses a Tesla patent.

As a patent describes how something works in detail it is considered source. allowing free usage means it becomes open source.

You don't need the cad files for something to be open source, nor do you need machine readable formats. They are nice to have, but not mandatory. Similar , many open source software does not deliver a compiled binary. it's up to you to make it.

The driving idea behind what Tesla is doing is to speed up the development of electric cars. It ain't moving fast enough to Elon's liking. Tesla is racing ahead but everyone else just mulls around...
By opening up the patents he hopes other car makers will follow his technology ( he will benefit once they start buying batteries , more on that later )

There is a small technicality though : NONE of the existing technologies in use in electric cars( apart from Tesla's) are compatible as they are. Take the supercharger for example. NONE of the other car makers could even use it if they wanted to as their battery chemistry and mode of cooling is completely different. Attempt to charge a non-tesla battery at supercharge rates and you end up with a fireball...  Supercharging requires liquid cooling and LithiumCobaltOxide cells... nobody apart from tesla has that.

Then there is the connector issue. Tesla will NOT switch to J1771 or chademo or any of the other 'car industry proposed' shite connectors. They simply are not fit for purpose. They can handle neither the current nor the voltage the supercharger delivers.

There are rules to follow ehn you want to use the Tesla patents for free

Rule number 1 : THOU SHALLT NOT DEMAND MONEY FROM THY USER FOR CHARGING
in other words : electricity MUST be FREE (as in gratis, zero-paid) to the owner of the car ! Tesla does not want to see companies making their own supercharger and then putting a money-lock on em. One of the things Tesla tries to break is the razor-razorblade problem we have with cars. Buy a car and then pay for the rest of your life for fuel. Power should be free. Tesla delivers solar produced power (through their co-ownership of Solarcity).
Rule number 2: you WILL co-pay for upkeep of charging stations. so any car maker that hops on the wagon needs to invest money in rolling out more superchargers and solar plants and the maintenance thereof.

Tesla wants to flood the world with charging points so that the charging problem in terms of spots goes away. chargers should be as available as gas stations. Today the rollout is simply too slow. everone that makes charging stations does so for commercial incentive ( make money from selling power) Since there are only a small number of ev's around , the rollout of stations is small too. no point in putting a charger very mile if you ain't got enough customers.
the slow rolloout of chargers hampers the fast rollout of cars. it is a chicken and egg problem. So tesla will make crambled eggs and vol-au-vent (chicken pot pie) from this problem : adopt our patents and you can charge on our systems for free ( customers will go to car vendors and demand supercharging and free ). as cars start selling we will deploy faster and more chargers.

Technically there are some serious hurdles and adaptations the other car makers will have to do.
I had a small discussion with one of their engineers. we chit-chatted about the power connector.

To give you an idea of the problem : The supercharger , when starting a nearly empty battery , delivers 380 volts at up to 330 ampere ... it does that for at least 20 minutes before current starts rolling back.

That battery is essentially a load of 1.1 ohm ... (380volt/330amps)

Where is the problem ? contact resistance and cabling losses !
a contact resistance of 11 milliohm is 1% of the battery resistance... yet burns off 1200 watts ! That's a friggin deep fryer !
The cable form the supercharger to the car , including the connectors, better be well below 0.1 milliohm ! even at 1 milliohm you burn 120 watts in the cable. if your connector resistance is a milliohm it will melt during charging because of the heat produced !

[M. András]

interesting decision, im wondering what will happen after this, big car company jumps on the freeby and produce their own profit by someone else handywork with zero investmen on their end?
Does he hope that this action will start a big industrial revolution and finally advance the technology used to make cars? improved battery technology etc. and finally all the sci-fi will become reality roughly 20 years later then it was predicted by them?

[retrolefty]

I'm still waiting for my flying car. 

[fcb]

Awesome. Simply awesome Elon.

[josem]

Rule number 1 : THOU SHALLT NOT DEMAND MONEY FROM THY USER FOR CHARGING
in other words : electricity MUST be FREE (as in gratis, zero-paid) to the owner of the car !

I'm still waiting for my flying car. 

True, but "Power too cheap to meter" may be coming!

[zapta]

Open source? Are they publishing the schematics, 3D models and firmware of their cars?

Very good point. Journalist sensationalism, patents are not source and they are always public.  They say that most likely that will not enforce them but reserve the right to do it anyway. Looks like a PR move to me.

[mtdoc]

Pretty hard to enforce your patents after declaring with a public letter that you won't.

Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

[zapta]

As a patent describes how something works in detail it is considered source. allowing free usage means it becomes open source.

You don't need the cad files for something to be open source, nor do you need machine readable formats. They are nice to have, but not mandatory. Similar , many open source software does not deliver a compiled binary. it's up to you to make it.

Equating a patent disclosure with the source files of a specific design qualifies as the spin of the month. ;-)

[zapta]

Pretty hard to enforce your patents after declaring with a public letter that you won't.

Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

Notice the 'in good faith'. That's very subjective. To really would really want to open the patents they would put them in the public domain.

[rob77]

excellent job Elon !   

patents are killing the evolution of technology... i don't say they shouldn't exist, but they should be valid for 2-3 years maximum.

[dr.diesel]

Too bad Musk is a one of a kind, world needs many more with his attitude/capabilities.

[mtdoc]

The letter is pretty clear.

What it means is that any automaker can look at Teslas (very public) patents and incorporate any of that technology into their own EV designs and not fear a patent infringement lawsuit.

Of course it's also a good PR move but that's besides the point.

Will it make a big difference? Who knows - likely not.  But I think in our current greed is good, cut throat, societal good be damned, profit above all corporate culture, it's a welcome gesture.

[mikeselectricstuff]

To give you an idea of the problem : The supercharger , when starting a nearly empty battery , delivers 380 volts at up to 330 ampere ... it does that for at least 20 minutes before current starts rolling back.

Not to mention the problem of how many existing gas stations are anywhere near a supply that can provide 125kW ?
Even if there is a suitable supply, electricity companies will charge a lot to provide a connection to it.
The avarage power over a day is probably manageable, but again we have a storage problem - it's just moved from the car to the gas station.   

[nctnico]

In my experience patents are far from blueprints on how to make a product. It's just a rough sketch of an idea which shows enough to prove the originallity of an idea. After all a patent is a legal document and many patents are just bogus.

I'm also skeptical about free power in a world where power becomes an increasingly scarse commodity.

[free_electron]

Not to mention the problem of how many existing gas stations are anywhere near a supply that can provide 125kW ?
 

That is why the superchargers are installed in huge shopping complexes where they can tap into the 400 volts lines from streetlighting.
And when i'm saying supercharger i mean not just one stall. The gilroy charger has 10 stalls . And can charge simultaneously. If 10 tesla's are 'drinking' that is over 1.2 megawatt beeing pulled ...
And ive been there numerous times when all bays are occupied.

Niw, the goal with superchargers is NOT to have these every 5 miles.
The idea is still that you charge at home. When taking a long trip you follow the charge points just like you follow fuel stations on huge highway corridors. Spacing the chargers 150 miles apart covers the entire US with roughly 600 chargers. You are always within range of at least two chargers. It works like a cell phone grid.

You will always pay for energy. Just not for the one fro. The superchargers. Tesla sees the supercharger as a necessity to make the electric vehicle work today.
There currently is no battery that can be filled at the speed of filling a gas tank. So this holds people back. The superchargers solve this problem. Charge at home at slow rate will cover day to day use for 80 to 90 of the driving cases. Longer trips are equally covered with superchargers. Tesla takes the installation and operation cost of those on them as they see it as an integral part of the EV revolution.
Maybe in the future we will have faster charging batteries with much more capacity. But that is future music. Today it is a problem, solved by deploying a network of superchargers.

Tesla thinks completely different. Other carmakers see the EV as a gimmick for eco-nuts. They make more money from half a week of selling ICE based cars, than all the EV's sold in a year combined... It's barely 1 percent of the market. Divide that one percent across car makers and it is a rounding error... For Tesla it is 100% ! It's sell or bust !

Elon is a very smart businessman as wel as a technogeek as well as a environmental protectionist. He wants to do the right thing and make a killing off of it.

Of course this is a big PR stunt, but at the same time he sprung a big trap on the other car makers.
By opening his technology the owners of other EV will go to their brand maker and ask : well ? We can we plug in for free ? All theses tesla owners can. Tesla allows you to make the car compatible and won't charge you for the patents... What are you waiting for.
Essentially he turned up the thumbscrews by telling the world: come get it. Everyone will want it (it's free) so the car makers are facing a problem now.. They will get pressure from buyers to adapt...
Adapting means, in the buyers eyes, compatible with teslas stations, fast charge, long range and free power.
The only problem is none of the car makers has anything even remotely compatible !
Different connectors, different chemistry, no. Liquid cooled, small packs.. Oops....
So tesla plays the buyers to force the manufacturers to kick in gear and follow tesla as opposed to doing a half arsed job with their own proprietary stuff.

Tesla will profit from this. How ? The gigafactory ! In order to be compatible you will need to build battery packs with the right cell chemistry and cooling technology. Guess who will have those ... Exactly.

Today, the limiting factor for tesla is how fast they can get a hold of the cells. There simply is not enough production capacity in the world , for that particular form factor and chemistry. They can only build 800 cars a week because they can only get  6 million cells a week (there's 6700 cells per car)

The giga factory will solve that. This factory is insane. It will have its own lithium refinery, be located close to lithium mines, have its own train tracks, powerplant (solar and wind farms) and it will recycle spent packs into new ones. Tesla wants the factory to be be self powering. In essence the packs will be built purely on solar and wind energy.
In order to refine gas, you need to burn gas...

It is very hard to figure out the 'why' he does the things the way he does em. The fact is the guy is incredibly clever and five moves ahead of everyone else in the chess game. You can bet top dollar he will only benefit from this move.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Not to mention the problem of how many existing gas stations are anywhere near a supply that can provide 125kW ?
 

That is why the superchargers are installed in huge shopping complexes where they can tap into the 400 volts lines from streetlighting.

I'd imagine something on that scale would be typically fed from at least 11kv with its own local substation. 125kw at 400V is an awfully big cable to run over any distance
 

[nctnico]

Not to mention the problem of how many existing gas stations are anywhere near a supply that can provide 125kW ?
 

That is why the superchargers are installed in huge shopping complexes where they can tap into the 400 volts lines from streetlighting.
And when i'm saying supercharger i mean not just one stall. The gilroy charger has 10 stalls . And can charge simultaneously. If 10 tesla's are 'drinking' that is over 1.2 megawatt beeing pulled ...
And ive been there numerous times when all bays are occupied.

Niw, the goal with superchargers is NOT to have these every 5 miles.
The idea is still that you charge at home. When taking a long trip you follow the charge points just like you follow fuel stations on huge highway corridors. Spacing the chargers 150 miles apart covers the entire US with roughly 600 chargers. You are always within range of at least two chargers. It works like a cell phone grid.

You will always pay for energy. Just not for the one fro. The superchargers. Tesla sees the supercharger as a necessity to make the electric vehicle work today.
There currently is no battery that can be filled at the speed of filling a gas tank. So this holds people back. The superchargers solve this problem. Charge at home at slow rate will cover day to day use for 80 to 90 of the driving cases. Longer trips are equally covered with superchargers. Tesla takes the installation and operation cost of those on them as they see it as an integral part of the EV revolution.
Maybe in the future we will have faster charging batteries with much more capacity. But that is future music. Today it is a problem, solved by deploying a network of superchargers.

Tesla thinks completely different. Other carmakers see the EV as a gimmick for eco-nuts. They make more money from half a week of selling ICE based cars, than all the EV's sold in a year combined... It's barely 1 percent of the market. Divide that one percent across car makers and it is a rounding error... For Tesla it is 100% ! It's sell or bust !

Elon is a very smart businessman as wel as a technogeek as well as a environmental protectionist. He wants to do the right thing and make a killing off of it.

Of course this is a big PR stunt, but at the same time he sprung a big trap on the other car makers.
By opening his technology the owners of other EV will go to their brand maker and ask : well ? We can we plug in for free ? All theses tesla owners can. Tesla allows you to make the car compatible and won't charge you for the patents... What are you waiting for.
Essentially he turned up the thumbscrews by telling the world: come get it. Everyone will want it (it's free) so the car makers are facing a problem now.. They will get pressure from buyers to adapt...
Adapting means, in the buyers eyes, compatible with teslas stations, fast charge, long range and free power.
The only problem is none of the car makers has anything even remotely compatible !
Different connectors, different chemistry, no. Liquid cooled, small packs.. Oops....
So tesla plays the buyers to force the manufacturers to kick in gear and follow tesla as opposed to doing a half arsed job with their own proprietary stuff.

Tesla will profit from this. How ? The gigafactory ! In order to be compatible you will need to build battery packs with the right cell chemistry and cooling technology. Guess who will have those ... Exactly.

Today, the limiting factor for tesla is how fast they can get a hold of the cells. There simply is not enough production capacity in the world , for that particular form factor and chemistry. They can only build 800 cars a week because they can only get  6 million cells a week (there's 6700 cells per car)

The giga factory will solve that.

No, that factory is what will kill Tesla (after Elon cashed in on his shares). There are lots of new technologies (not necessarily EV based) lurking on the horizon. Either way the competition will be using new technology while Tesla is still writing off that large battery factory of them. The first will be the last..

Tesla cars seem to be quite popular over here though. I only drive once every few weeks but over the past couple of months I have spotted 5 unique Tesla model-S. The problem I see is that paid chargers are along the highways but Tesla's 'free' superchargers are on industrial zones. You don't want to be driving on an industrial zone during rush hour or at night. At night you are all alone and during rush hour you can easely waste 15 minutes by waiting to get back on the highway.

[Fuzzy]

125kw at 400V is an awfully big cable to run over any distance

took a picture of the cable going to one charger...

[free_electron]

I'd imagine something on that scale would be typically fed from at least 11kv with its own local substation. 125kw at 400V is an awfully big cable to run over any distance

Below some pictures of the rig they have in gilroy. There is a large power cabinet from the power company. That feeds 4 supercharger modules . A second power cabinet feeds another 3 , older superchargers. The older installation can only deliver 90 kilowatts to the cars. The supercharger modules must be ganged together to deliver this kind of power to the car.

Supercharger 120Kw, 2Vehicles, North America
Input voltage : 480V AC
Input current : 160 A
Phases ; 3Ph + N +  GND

output voltage : 50-410V DC
output current : 210 Amp Max continuous


I dont really noticed a high voltage power transformer nearby.

The supercharger tag mentions incoming power

[free_electron]

Here is what the car pulls when it has 30 miles of juice left in the pack (85 KW pack)
332 amps at 368 volts...

[MacAttak]

Charge stations don't need to be as ubiquitous as gas stations are. Now that I have my own MS P85+, I've realized that the "refueling" pattern is completely different.

With gasoline-powered cars you only fill up when you are almost empty. This means there MUST be a station at very regular intervals (every few miles at least) otherwise you have stranded drivers. So refueling is a break in the routine. Hence the existence of "sorry I'm late for the meeting, I forgot I had to stop for gas today or I wouldn't have made it".

But with EV in a commuter situation, it's nothing like that. You plug in when you get home and top it off overnight. And that's it. You always have enough charge for the next day's driving unless you need to do a longer road trip. And in that case then you only need a station at strategic points along major highways every 100 to 150 miles or so.

There is no need for a charging port on every street corner like there is with gas engines. You will use overnight grid electricity (cheaper than daytime) the vast majority of the time, and those high-power supercharger stations on the occasional long road trips. And won't be late for meetings every other week.

[zapta]

...You will use overnight grid electricity (cheaper than daytime) the vast majority of the time, ...

Cllean-car-that-runs-on-free-sun-power no more?