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Comment by ILMostro7 | Hacker News Reader

Electric Vehicles have been around for decades. Arguably, if it wasn't for the weed-smoking twitter troll, those established car companies would still not be investing in EVs. Notably, the Electric Vehicle that surpassed all measures of quality by Comsumer Reports; giving away patents to expedite the EV development, research, and related infrastructure; cutting out the middle man in the distribution channel...

A bit odd how quickly the cynics and Monday Morning Quarterbacks usurp the conversation.

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> Arguably, if it wasn't for the weed-smoking twitter troll, those established car companies would still not be investing in EVs.

I think Tesla made EVs cooler or made them look like an actual option, but it isn't true that other car makers just ignored EV options. They produced them for decades, there just was no public interest. VW for example had a new electric model at least once every decade for over 50 years now (a golf each in the 70s, 80s and 90s, a EV bus in the 70s etc.), there just wasn't much mainstream interest.

VW and incumbent manufacturers never built a supercharger network that made long-distance travel in their EVs feasible.

The goalposts seem to be in fine shape this morning, look at them go!

They are investing in EVs mostly because governments are moving towards mandating them to combat global warming and pollution eg. "Norway to 'completely ban petrol powered cars by 2025'" etc. Not mostly because of Tesla.

They didn’t give away patents. They publicly announced they would cross-license patents. You only get to use them if you also give Tesla all of your patents.

> Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you

Not exactly: "Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology." IANAL, but I have no idea what that means.

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