[marvin]

In fact, Tesla's approach to battery packs is revolutionary - it goes completely against the status quo in the same way that Google's use of commodity hardware went against the status quo in the late 90s. Tesla packs use about 7000 commodity li-ion cells which are arranged in a pack with individual software-controlled charge management.

A user on the Tesla Motors forum pointed out that if Tesla actually implements their battery patents, the battery pack which was displayed in a National Geographic documentary (pixelated, of course) was in fact a fake.