The buzz that has been floating around Tesla over the last year is not flattering, including but not limited to sales model jealousy, fire recalls, and lemon-law lawsuits. Lately, famed CEO and real-life Tony Stark, Elon Musk, has been teasing that he wants to do something controversial. Now, he’s followed through on those threats.
According to Business Insider, Musk offered up some tasty information at the UK launch of the Tesla S on Sunday. The article said, “The Tesla Motors CEO said he would like to open up the designs for his Supercharger systems — the free fast-charging stations designed to quickly refuel Tesla’s electric cars — to create a standard for other car makers to use.”
Anybody saying that Musk is trying to monopolize the automotive market (a la progressive sales models) has been rightfully corrected.
Releasing Tesla designs is the best kind of controversy, because it’s unheard of… a CEO basically handing out designs? This news could lend itself to a universal charging standard, which could benefit all automotive manufacturers as electric vehicles are ushered into the mainstream.
News like this overflows with advantages, not limited to the ability to quickly create a massive charging network with the aid of every major automotive manufacturer in the country. The release of technology of this caliber has the potential to revolutionize an industry and help usher in a new era of the automobile.
But wait.
Musk also, quite recently, had states competing to be sites for his massive Tesla factories, components factories. I’ll give you one guess who will be ahead of the curve when everybody adopts a highly-efficient, open source, fast-charging network for electric vehicles.
That’s not to mention that Musk’s other freely-released design, the Hyperloop, could utilize such a massively adopted supercharger network. He has said that one of the biggest things holding back the Hyperloop concept is infrastructure. Well, have your cake and eat it too, Mr. Musk.
To some end, this seems like an eco-moral conundrum. On the other hand, Musk could just be executing intelligent capitalism – though a media and green-energy sweetheart, like Musk, might be hard to label a ruthless capitalist.
Income aside, it would be hard to argue that Musk’s intentions, whether they serve his bank accounts well or not, will do much else but good. Tony Stark acted like a bad boy, money-making fiend, but in the end, he was only trying to save the world. Musk may be doing the same thing, only with a little more subtlety. Saving the world with an electric grid isn’t nearly as flashy as a red suit of flying armor, but I’ll still accept the offer.
Maybe Musk is just trying to corner a market that is not limited to his cars. But, let’s be honest, good for him!
Is Musk just serving his own greed, or is he really trying to usher in a new automotive regime? Comment below or email chris.fox@advantagemedia.com.
