Devonshire.
Just to debunk this thing from Devonshire aka SURFHACKER in as few lines as possible for avoidance of timewaste:
Link:
http://www.devonshireresearch.com/research/Devonshire Research Group - Tesla Motors - TSLA - Public Release.pdf
Firstly, it is bullshit, but it is largely an intelligently written and well drawn sleight of hand. The object, just like a card trick is to ignore the simple fact that the card is up the trickster's sleeve the whole while and to make as much fuss as possible about the distraction.
It comes in 3 sections. First one is headlined:
"TSLA is attempting more vertical integration than any auto company has recently tried".
Naturally the exception is the company whose trajectory is the most analogous to Tesla. That would be the Ford Motor Company with the Model T. Probably no need to say any more about that.
The second section deals with patents.
Tesla's move to open source patents is an excellent defense against patent suits. It is would be very difficult to gain the sympathy of a judge that Tesla is violating a patent when the first line of Tesla's defense is that they are most likely using most of ours, they certainly have not rejected our offer to give them access and this case is brought in bad faith. The most damaging (libelous) allegation is that Tesla is potentially exposed to a patent suit on its motor designs, which is of course nonsense given the fact that the basic premise of the AC induction motor is a very long expired patent (one filed by Nikola Tesla himself) and Tesla Motors' iteration is is Tesla Motor's own patented design.
Tesla will know full well that no ICE auto maker can use its patents to build an competitive EV, not without hastening the implosion of the ICE business sustaining that competitor. Lastly, startups are no threat to Tesla no matter how well funded, not even Apple. By definition they are more than a decade behind Tesla's pace and the most likely path to any such project's success after almost inevitable failure to make competitive headway against Tesla is to collapse into cooperation with Tesla on batteries, charging and OTA network services.
The Third section deals with environmental impact of EVs.
This is just a bunch of crap predicated upon hard wiring EVs to a coal plant and failure to recycle batteries at end of life. Neither of which premise is remotely true under any circumstances in regards to Tesla EVs, current or future and indeed Coal is being actively phased out in practically all current Tesla markets (and likely all future markets too, thinking of India for example) while renewable additions to the grid in all current markets drastically out-pace the compensating rate of EV adoption which in itself destroys the entire premise of arguments like this. Tesla has always had 100% recycling provision in place via contractors and of course the Gigafactory will become an end of life recycling plant taking up that function at scale. As regards the supposed toxicity of Cobalt (a trace mineral constituent of dietary supplements) - the author is clearly confused with Cadmium which is a toxic heavy metal. Lithium batteries are ostensibly landfill-safe (which all heavy metals such as Lead and Cadmium are definitely not).
