Tesla is planning to license Autopilot and its Full Self-Driving suite to other companies, CEO Elon Musk said June 5 on Twitter.
The announcement came after Tesla recently struck a deal with Ford to open its Supercharging network to the automaker, which also plans to adopt Tesla’s charging connector, eliminating the need for an adapter.
Musk, in a tweet responding to an article regarding GM CEO Mary Barra’s comments regarding Tesla’s prowess in EVs, said the company “aspires to be as helpful as possible to other car companies,” mentioning the move it made several years ago to make its patents freely available to other companies.
“Also happy to license Autopilot/FSD or other Tesla technology,” Musk tweeted.
Tesla’s mission statement is to help accelerate the world to sustainable energy, including assisting other companies when helpful, even if the company were to put itself at a competitive or strategic disadvantage in doing so.
While there is absolutely a benefit to being the most successful car company on the planet and selling the most EVs, Musk and Tesla have always maintained the ultimate goal is to free the dependency on fossil fuels, which are limited and will eventually run out.
This was evident years ago when Tesla opened its patents to other companies, helping move forward some struggling automakers in their quest to create an effective product.
In a 2014 blog post, “All Our Patent Are Belong To You,” Musk described his reasoning for opening up Tesla’s intellectual property to others.
“We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform,” he wrote. “Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.”
Abby Andrews