Tesla CEO Elon Musk said it would make sense to license the technology behind the company’s Full Self Driving system for other automakers to buy, including even direct competitors.
A new version of Full Self Driving is set to debut next year along with the Cybertruck pickup. The company says it has about four times as many features and capabilities as the current version.
This does not mean that Tesla considers making its software public domain or even free: such complex systems always require substantial investment to develop, so just giving them away is not a viable business practice. However, enabling other carmakers to license already existing technology stacks instead of inventing their own is always preferable.
In early 2021, Musk let it slip that he was negotiating the opportunities of licensing Tesla autopilot technologies with major car manufacturers. In a more recent move, the company let other EV owners use its Supercharger network.