Tesla inspires BMW to share battery technology

Sharing is caring! The entire world believes in this small gesture. So do few automobile companies when it comes to sharing their technology. Almost a month ago, Tesla Motors shocked the industry when they announced to open up their electric car technology to the world by sharing their patents. BMW has also decided to follow them.

The German manufacturer has announced to open up its patents related to battery cell technology that it co-developed with Samsung SDI. BMW took this step to take advantage of economies of scale - a way to reduce the cost of lithium-ion batteries.

While BMW and Tesla certainly are taking different approaches to electric vehicles, they seem to share the same opinion on how opening up patents for other electric vehicle manufacturers to use could give a boost to the entire EV sector. Both the companies believe that sharing technology could lead to greater total innovation, greater innovation could lead to higher sales, and higher sales could bring the much-needed scale to lithium-ion supply.

This is a very interesting step by both these companies. By taking this extreme step, we believe more manufacturers will refer to these patents and develop a cost effective electric vehicles. Currently, Mahindra is the only EV manufacturer in India who is in the process of reviewing Tesla patents for applicability to its electric vehicles.