Tesla to get $60M from Toyota in powertrain deal - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal Despite these trying financial times, Toyota is throwing $60M at Tesla. I'm having a hard time reconciling how Toyota says they are NOT going to make an EV again, and then they do this. Works for me! ... it's just the double speak is overwhelming. What does it mean? Is Toyota trying to defend against the Leaf? .
I heard about this on the financial news radio while driving home from work today. They said that through this deal, Toyota is effectively ordering EV systems from Tesla to drop into the RAV4, and sold at Toyota dealers as an EV RAV4. Pretty cool. I somewhat interpret this as Toyota preferring to have Telsa, experienced in EV, to make EV drivetrains for Toyota instead of Toyota investing their own $MULTI-MILLIONS of R&D into EVs like Nissan and GM did. Toyota invested HUGE amounts of money into creating the world-leading HSD system. That's their claim to victory. To have a head-to-head product with Nissan's Leaf, they will spend much less and just contract with Tesla. Excellent strategy for now.
Its suppose to be at the LA auto show in November Toyota/Tesla RAV4 EV coming to LA Auto Show, Prius PHEV hitting dealerships in Q2 2012 — Autoblog
Awesome! I don't need to see it in person (too far for me). I just want to know where they would put the battery and the EV range. If they use the flat battery pack like the Model S, you won't lose any interior room. I am hoping for 150 to 250 miles range. Model S has 300 miles range.
Are any countries still selling the short wheel base this year/2010? The SWB is lighter and would thus be less expensive to make.
Toyota after most likely spending billions deciding that can't profitably make an ev, has found the more nimble smaller tesla can do it more cheaply and likely better. $60M is nothing. GM spent over $1B for production of only 800 EV1s. Its smart for toyota to use a supplier that can creatively design the BEV guts. Ford has done similar things to get the BEV transit connect and focus to market faster. My educated guess is the LWB. SWB isn't going to really impact costs much. LWB is the one that sells in the US which is likely the market. I'm sure that tesla could outfit either one, but LWB provides more space for the batteries.
