Earlier this week, Elon Musk, CEO, of Tesla Motors made a shocking statement: Tesla would sharing its patents for other companies to use freely. “[We] will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology,” Musk said.

Of course, the company will not just be handing over its inventions and design secrets so any company can reproduce them, but it also will not file suit against other car companies that take Tesla innovations and make them more mainstream.

So what is the motivation here? According to Forbes, the move is actually a very calculated one for Musk’s Tesla Motors, as it will make other, bigger companies more likely to start pursuing electric vehicles in the vein of the Model S and other Tesla products.

Why does Tesla want competition in the niche it helped build? Quite simply, it is because Tesla does not want the electric car market to be a “niche” market any longer.

With more companies producing electric cars, and at a wider variety of price points, the technology would become more widespread among mainstream car buyers, which in turn would force the implementation of a greater number of battery charging stations throughout the country and around the world. Thus, the ostensibly inexplicable move actually contributes to Tesla’s overall desire to initiate more collaboration in the short-term, to control more of the electronic car market share in the long-term.

In addition to outlining the thinking behind Musk’s decision to open up Tesla’s patents, the Forbes article also noted that Tesla was currently in talks with BMW to develop some sort of electric car collaboration agreement. BMW, which has recently been pushing electric cars of its own, such as the i3 (a small city car) or the i8 (a more robust hybrid), shares Tesla’s goal of pushing electric car usage to a wider audience, and could be a perfect partner in helping electric cars to reach the mainstream marketplace.