Elon Musk instructed Thursday throughout a Twitter Spaces with Ford CEO Jim Farley that Tesla might open up a few of its automotive working system code to other automakers.
“In the same way that maybe Android is helpful to the phone industry as sort of a general standard, like we could potentially open source more code,” mentioned Musk. If Tesla takes that leap it’s going to compete with Google, which has developed an automotive working system based mostly on Android, in addition to Apple.
Musk was responding to Farley’s notice that making a “fully software updatable vehicle” is “super hard.” The billionaire govt mentioned Tesla could be blissful to “be helpful on the software front.”
Musk made the remark throughout a Twitter Spaces that was used to announce a milestone settlement between Tesla and Ford. Under the deal introduced Thursday, Ford’s EV prospects will get entry to the Tesla Supercharging community within the U.S. and Canada. More importantly, Ford agreed to incorporate Tesla’s charging port into its second-generation of EVs, which features a truck and three-row SUV, beginning in 2025.
Musk usually spitballs concepts for Tesla at stay occasions, a few of which come to fruition and a few of which don’t. If Tesla had been to strive to commercialize its over-the-air updatable software program to other autos, it could put the automaker in direct competitors with Google and Apple.
Google presents automakers Android Automotive OS, which is modeled after its open source cell working system that runs on Linux and is modified to be used in vehicles. Apple additionally jumped into the OS sport final June when it introduced that its next-gen CarPlay goals to energy a car’s whole instrument cluster. Both tech firms additionally supply a middleware product referred to as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto that connects a person’s cellphone to a automobile’s infotainment system.
Supply chain partnerships
Musk and Farley additionally hinted Thursday at other potential partnerships sooner or later, together with within the provide chain.
The Ford CEO questioned Musk about Tesla’s new Corpus Christi lithium refining plant. Ford recently struck a series of deals, together with with Albemarle and SQM, to make sure the automaker’s entry to lithium.
Musk repeated earlier woes that there should not sufficient entrepreneurs within the U.S. digging into uncooked supplies mining and processing, and that he needs Tesla didn’t have to choose up the slack. He mentioned the corporate has a nickel-based cathode refinery in Austin, and might even have to become involved in anode manufacturing, however “hopefully not.”
Musk famous that there’s going to be an enormous marketplace for artificial graphite (graphite is the primary materials in most lithium-ion anodes).
The two CEOs have remained pleasant at instances regardless of competing against each other. Musk has praised the automaker up to now, noting on a number of events that solely Tesla and Ford have avoided bankruptcy.
Ford, like other legacy automakers, continues to be aiming to unseat Tesla because the No. 1 vendor of EVs within the United States. Ford has a methods to go.
In 2022, Ford offered 61,575 electrical autos within the U.S. Tesla offered 1.3 million EVs globally. The firm doesn’t get away gross sales by nation. Over the previous two years, Ford mentioned it lost about $3 billion on its EV and digital companies enterprise, a unit now referred to as Model e. The firm doesn’t anticipate Model e to be worthwhile till late 2026 with an 8% working revenue margin. Ford’s conventional gas-powered engine items had been worthwhile sufficient to offset these losses, although.
In phrases of manufacturing, Ford goals to attain 600,000 EV items by the top of 2023 and a pair of million by the top of 2026.
Tesla mentioned it desires to hit a 50% compound annual development price in 2023 that ought to see the automaker produce 1.8 million vehicles.
