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One thing missing from this picture is the significant amount of software that Tesla has that's not open-source. It's not trivial to get an always-connected ca

One thing missing from this picture is the significant amount of software that Tesla has that's not open-source. It's not trivial to get an always-connected car working(as we've seen from other mfgrs). I think where you'll see Tesla succeed is using the aggregated data across it's whole fleet to make smart engineering/product decisions moving forward. We've already seen this when the bumped up the spec on the 85D from 5.2s to 3.9s 0-60 based on real-world motor usage.

Menge 11y ago
> an always-connected car Hmm, I actually find that very unsettling in the context of this article and the recent VW debacle. Detecting fraud and recall worthy software failures was already a scary prospect. But a random companies' random engineers tuning a few thousand cars here or there to see what happens in real time.. I feel like we are about to enter a horrible new world where computer forensics meets regular forensics.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  To each their own. A big part of it is faith. I'm willing to hand $100K to Tesla for a Model S, moreso because its connected to them all the time.
sounds 11y ago
The article is critically lacking in insight because it implies that open sourcing patents gave Chinese manufacturers an advantage. That's not how patents work. A patent includes the description of how the invention works right in the application. Consequently, if you live in a jurisdiction where you don't fear prosecution, you can immediately clone the idea. The only way Tesla could have kept their ideas "secret" would have been to not patent them at all! Tesla's patent pledge was just a public statement that, under certain conditions, they wouldn't sue.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > A patent includes the description of how the invention works right in the application. Consequently, if you live in a jurisdiction where you don't fear prosecution, you can immediately clone the idea. The only way Tesla could have kept their ideas "secret" would have been to not patent them at all! That's exactly why SpaceX doesn't patent their technologies; the actors who would copy them are orgs they can't sue (nation states).

Menge 11y ago

> an always-connected car Hmm, I actually find that very unsettling in the context of this article and the recent VW debacle. Detecting fraud and recall worthy software failures was already a scary prospect. But a random companies' random engineers tuning a few thousand cars here or there to see what happens in real time.. I feel like we are about to enter a horrible new world where computer forensics meets regular forensics.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
To each their own. A big part of it is faith. I'm willing to hand $100K to Tesla for a Model S, moreso because its connected to them all the time.

sounds 11y ago

The article is critically lacking in insight because it implies that open sourcing patents gave Chinese manufacturers an advantage. That's not how patents work. A patent includes the description of how the invention works right in the application. Consequently, if you live in a jurisdiction where you don't fear prosecution, you can immediately clone the idea. The only way Tesla could have kept their ideas "secret" would have been to not patent them at all! Tesla's patent pledge was just a public statement that, under certain conditions, they wouldn't sue.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> A patent includes the description of how the invention works right in the application. Consequently, if you live in a jurisdiction where you don't fear prosecution, you can immediately clone the idea. The only way Tesla could have kept their ideas "secret" would have been to not patent them at all! That's exactly why SpaceX doesn't patent their technologies; the actors who would copy them are orgs they can't sue (nation states).