How is it worse than if Tesla was aggressively perusing their patents? It's the patent system itself that you have a problem with. Tesla's patent sharing scheme only makes things potentially better for other inventors.
Independently invent something. Turns out it's already patented, within this good faith consortium. Now the only way to use it is by participating. Normally, this kind of thing results in getting sued for royalties.
You have answered it. Free patent, GPL or not, you'd have this problem. And it's even worse on "normal" cases.