A quick search yields a lot of patents that Tesla Motors own which you can view here: http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/tesla-motors-inc/ http://www.faqs.org

A quick search yields a lot of patents that Tesla Motors own which you can view here: http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/tesla-motors-inc/ http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/tesla-motors-inc/ They've got some patents on some pretty key pieces of functionality and technology which they'll be licencing out no doubt in the future when other car makers come to the table. This is what I meant about 50% of Tesla's future revenue possibly coming from licencing out their technology. The crucial part of an electric vehicle is the batteries and if you look through the list of patents which Tesla Motors is the assignee, they've got tonnes of patents on functionality based around the batteries; temperature sensors, voltage sensors, connectors, pressure sensors and smart charging tech, battery shields and more. Sure, not all patents they've filed are in use, but it does show Tesla are at the forefront of electric vehicle tech. Think for a moment in 2009 General Motors Vice Chairman Robert Lutz told The New Yorker "All the geniuses here at General Motors kept saying lithium-ion technology is 10 years away, and Toyota agreed with us – and boom, along comes Tesla. So I said, 'How come some tiny little California startup, run by guys who know nothing about the car business, can do this, and we can't?' That was the crowbar that helped break up the log jam." I think this one quote sums up what Musk and the countless others who work at Tesla Motors have done, they spurned a revolution. Yes, some people get caught up in the "aura of Elon Musk" but you've got to understand the bigger picture here, it's bigger than Musk, Tesla Motors are revolutionising the electric car industry which was basically non-existent before they came onto the scene. Nobody wanted to take on the risk of investing hundreds of millions of dollars into something that people might not want. The Global Financial Crisis most likely was a deterring factor for some companies considering the thought of entering the electric vehicle car space.