We think of the auto industry as fiercely competitive. There is overcapacity in the developed world; customers are encouraged to buy new cars ever more frequently; governments feel obliged to step in with incentives.
Fearful of Chinese industriousness and lack of scruples, we thought everything would be copied - and become worthless. We put up barriers, and protected industrial property with regulations and trademarks and lawsuits.
We thought competition would drive prices down, and the cost of labor with them, and production would all delocalize.
Instead, we are seeing a different dynamic: the rise of brand loyalty. Brands are courting customers, investing in product quality by attracting the best engineers, and managing their reputation. A corporation must be trustworthy; it needs to have values we share. It needs to care about the community - or at least not be an evil human rights violator.
In this context, companies need to invest in R&D and they are seeing value in sharing.
Carmakers have been sharing production platforms for years. They assemble similar cars on shared platforms and then compete for customers by catering to them and caring for them.
This week, Daimler and Nissan announced a joint venture to build Mercedes and Infiniti compact cars in Mexico. But an announcement that stood out even more was Tesla's: CEO Elon Musk said the company was scrapping its patent protection and sharing its technology. Tesla says electric carmakers need to collaborate on finding solutions to get battery powered vehicles into the mainstream with readily available charging stations.
"Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers," wrote Musk in Tesla's blog. "We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard."
So Tesla, BMW and Nissan are in talks to collaborate on electric car charging standards.
It was the Internet itself that really made sharing so common-sense and so large-scale. Today the open source concept is breaking down more and more barriers and ushering in a new kind of capitalism, a sharing economy.
