Tesla Motors, Inc.: Pioneer towards a new strategic approach in the automobile industry along the open source movement?

In many industries, we observe a paradigm shift from traditional value creation towards co-creation and open production approaches. The boundaries of companies dissolve and many more players (suppliers, customers, community members, etc.) are integrated into the value creation process. This also implies the share of knowledge to set industry-wide standards and to advance new technologies. Tesla Motors, Inc. recently announced that it would give away all their patents to anyone who in good faith wants to use them. They say their aim was to foster the advancement of electric vehicles to compete with conventional vehicles and give the zero-emission mobility a push. Nevertheless, what about the traditional automobile industry with its big players where even the slightest growth in market share is crucial and the intellectual property (IP) of a company is kept secret like the Holy Grail as it ensures competitive advantages? Based on a Tesla case study our research focusses on product-, company-, market- and industry-specific factors that might enable even small players to start an industry-wide revolution by applying strategic aspects of openness in their business model.