Though electric cars hardly make a scratch on the consumer automobiles sector, they sure do know how to make a lot of “noise”! Tesla, BMW and Nissan are collaborating to standardize the way electric vehicles are charged up.
Just a week after Tesla announced that all it’s patents would be released, we’re seeing a lot more open collaboration. Just like Elon Musk said on his blog,
“Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.”
And it seems like he’s sticking on to this statement, by working alongside other electric car manufacturers. The goal here is not to become the biggest electric car company or sell the most electric cars, here, the goal is to change the world, by making electric cars the norm.
Just like how your iPad, Android and Mac have different charging cables and ports, electric cars do. You just can’t take a Nissan Leaf and stick it to a Tesla charging station. Apart from the fact that Tesla offers a $1000 adapter, there’s other things that are different from a Nissan and a Tesla.
This is seen as a large impediment to a wider adaptation of electric cars. Because, think about it, if I own a gasoline powered car, the options for me to refuel are virtually limitless. If our future reality does convert every petrol bunk into a Tesla supercharger, it wouldn’t be of any use to my Nissan Leaf. To overcome this issue, these huge companies are getting together to create a standard.
Nissan’s involvement is really important since Leaf is the most popular electric vehicle with about 100,00 Leaf’s (or Leaves) sold. It’s obvious why Tesla is important here. With state-of-the art design and technology, you can’t leave out this big guy over here. Having a large battery pack that produces over 100 kilowatt of power might help too. Not to mention having an all powerful solar powered supercharger. And the ongoing competition from all these electric cars might be a factor too.
Nissan and Tesla met last week to discuss on this issue, although it might have been something more than just standardizing electric charging ports. Unfortuantely both of them denied it.