????特斯拉（Tesla）首席執(zhí)行官埃隆?穆斯克希望公司開放專利的決定能最終促使大型汽車制造商研發(fā)出更多電動(dòng)汽車投向市場。汽車業(yè)和他們那種“我們只要自己發(fā)明的東西”的文化會(huì)買賬嗎？

????調(diào)查公司Navigant Research的分析師薩姆?杰夫表示，至今為止，這家豪華電動(dòng)汽車制造商仍掌握著一系列令人驚嘆的專利，涉及電池包、汽車設(shè)計(jì)、電化學(xué)和自動(dòng)化等方面。比如說，這家公司創(chuàng)造性地根據(jù)小型的圓柱形鋰離子電池設(shè)計(jì)了電池包，而業(yè)內(nèi)的其他公司仍然在大型的方形蓄電池上止步不前。

????杰夫說：“毫無疑問，小型電池更加便宜。由于特斯拉的知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)專利，其他大型汽車制造商可能會(huì)在進(jìn)入小型電池領(lǐng)域時(shí)猶豫不決。想要不和特斯拉的專利雷同是很困難的事情。”

????杰夫稱，小型電池可能更便宜，但需要更先進(jìn)的散熱技術(shù)、感應(yīng)技術(shù)和架線技術(shù)。比如說，特斯拉Model S的85千瓦時(shí)電池包中包含7,100枚獨(dú)立電池，每枚電池都需要有與匯集電流的母線焊接的電線。這就意味著電池包中得有幾千個(gè)焊接點(diǎn)，而雪佛蘭伏特（Chevrolet Volt）的大型電池包中只包含288枚電池。

????杰夫說：“特斯拉最重要的專利之一就是這種自動(dòng)化焊接技術(shù)。”這家電動(dòng)汽車制造商的其他幾大創(chuàng)新技術(shù)包括電池結(jié)構(gòu)、安全工程和電池監(jiān)控技術(shù)。

????特斯拉開放專利后，專利訴訟的危險(xiǎn)就降低了。但是目前還不清楚汽車制造業(yè)的同行們究竟會(huì)不會(huì)碰這些專利。

????杰夫說：“汽車制造商都很害怕用的東西不是自己的。他們最不希望的事情，就是被人看成是照搬其他公司想法和設(shè)計(jì)的廠商。”

????穆斯克本周與寶馬高管進(jìn)行了會(huì)晤。這件事讓人開始推測這兩家公司會(huì)不會(huì)彼此分享各自的技術(shù)，開辟出汽車制造業(yè)的經(jīng)營新道路。寶馬生產(chǎn)了電動(dòng)汽車i3和插電式混合動(dòng)力車i8，許多分析家認(rèn)為它是特斯拉的直接競爭對手。（想要了解更多情況，請點(diǎn)擊觀看我們最近關(guān)于寶馬的財(cái)富科技辯論會(huì)。）

????特斯拉發(fā)言人西蒙?斯普洛爾強(qiáng)調(diào)，汽車制造商一直以來都會(huì)舉行這樣的會(huì)面，分享觀點(diǎn)，探討一些想法的可能性。斯普洛爾說：“這完全是日常的商務(wù)活動(dòng)。”

????福特汽車公司（Ford Motor Co.）沒有表示自己是否會(huì)使用特斯拉的技術(shù)。福特稱自己是第一家、也是唯一一家擁有專用的開源硬件及軟件平臺(tái)的汽車制造商。公司女發(fā)言人表示，他們鼓勵(lì)業(yè)內(nèi)采用創(chuàng)新性技術(shù)。她說：“我們不斷地廣泛授權(quán)我們的專利技術(shù)，包括可充氣的安全帶系統(tǒng)、防翻滾穩(wěn)定控制系統(tǒng)、供警車使用的‘監(jiān)督模式’技術(shù)和我們的未系安全帶提醒系統(tǒng)，希望能擴(kuò)大它們的采用率。”

????Tesla Motors TSLA 1.42% CEO Elon Musk hopes the company’s great patent giveaway will be the carrot that will finally encourage large automakers to bring more electric vehicles to market. Will the automotive industry and its we-invented-it-here culture bite?

????The luxury electric vehicle maker has, until now, closely held a compelling batch of patents related to its battery pack, car design, electrochemistry and automation, said Navigant Research analyst Sam Jaffe. For instance, the company designed its innovative battery pack around small format cylindrical lithium-ion cells, while the rest of the industry has stuck with large format prismatic cells.

????“There’s no debate that the small cells are cheaper,” Jaffe said. “The large automakers may have hesitated to go to the small cells because of Tesla’s intellectual property patents. It would have been hard not to bump into them.”

????The small cells might be cheaper, but they also require a lot of thermal cooling, sensors and wiring, Jaffe says. For instance, Tesla’s Model S 85 kWh battery packs have 7,100 individual batteries. Each one needs a wire welded to a busbar, which collects the current. That means thousands of weld points, versus the Chevrolet Volt large format battery pack, which has only 288 cells.

????“One of Tesla’s most important patents dealt with the automation those welds,” Jaffe said. The electric automaker’s cell structure, safety engineering and battery monitoring are other innovative pieces of technology.

????In releasing the patents, Tesla reduces the threat of patent lawsuits. But it’s unclear whether peer automakers would even engage with them.

????“Automakers tend to suffer from the not-created-here syndrome,” Jaffe said. “The last thing they want is to be seen as using another company’s ideas or design.”

????Musk met with BMW executives this week. The event has led to speculation over whether the two companies would share their respective technologies? and give life to a new way of conducting business in the auto industry. BMW manufactures the electric i3 and plug-in hybrid i8, and many analysts consider the automaker a direct competitor to Tesla. (For more,watch our recent Fortune Tech Debate about the company.)

????Tesla spokesman Simon Sproule stressed automakers have meetings like this all the time to share ideas and “what if” scenarios. “It’s totally normal daily business,” Sproule said.

????Ford Motor Co. F 0.24% wouldn’t say whether it would use Tesla’s technology. The company, which describes itself as the first and only automaker to have a dedicated open source hardware and software platform, said through a spokeswoman that it encourages the adoption of innovative technology across the industry. “We repeatedly have offered to widely license our patent technology to encourage expanded adoption, including our inflatable safety belt system, Roll Stability Control, “Surveillance mode” technology for police vehicles and our Belt-Minder system,” she said.