Toyota and Tesla to build electric sedan

By Tim Beissmann | May 21st, 2010

UPDATED May 21 11am

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla has formed a partnership with Toyota to build an all-new electric sedan in California.

In the deal, Toyota will invest $US50 million in the Silicon Valley-based brand, while Tesla will acquire the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc (NUMMI) factory for production of the Model S.

The all-electric Model S sedan will join the $US109,000 Roadster in 2012 with production to peak at 20,000 per year. The move comes after the US Government loaned it $US465 million to build an all-new, more affordable electric vehicle.

Toyota is on the record as committing to a mass-produced electric vehicle by 2012, and the partnership will assist Toyota in its development of the Prius Plug-In Hybrid, a competitor for rival Japanese manufacturer Nissan and its Leaf, due to launch in the US later this year.

Toyota hopes to make the car available within two to three years.

The NUMMI factory originally facilitated the joint venture between Toyota and General Motors in Fremont, California, and ceased production in April.

(with Reuters)

lazybones

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

The Model S is beautiful stylish, fast, innovative and cool. Toyota don’t do any of the above. If toyota get hold of this beauty they will keep it white, and run it down to -5 degrees so you can store your fruit and veg in it.
Fremont

Yes! The right move by Tesla and Toyota!

Haters gonna hate!

lazybones

I don’t hate Toyota. i owned a RAV4 for 4 years they make excellent A to B cars. But the model S is so much more. We need some hero EV cars to stir some passion like (Tesla roadster, Model S, Lightning GT). Not just Miev’s and Leafs. I mean just look at the picture above of the Toyota. I looks like its been shat out the arse of a transformer.
lazybones

I don’t hate Toyota. i owned a RAV4 for 4 years they make excellent A to B cars. But the model S is so much more. We need some hero EV cars to stir some passion like (Tesla roadster, Model S, Lightning GT). Not just Miev’s and Leafs. I mean just look at the picture above of the Toyota. I looks like its been shat out the ar*e of a transformer.

Steve-Poyza

Did you mean Leaves?

Baji

bahahahaha thats the funniest thing i’ve heard all day!

the Model S is indeed a great looking car and i hope toyota don’t screw around with it too much.
Baji

^ that was in response to lazybones

Andrew M

It was a classic wasnt it.

Ive gotta wonder how well the lights on the Toyota work.
I think the vehicle would create too much of a shadow with the lights back there

milobob

Did the Toyota car on picture change from some concept to a prius? lol…

Andrew M

yep

Whitbomb07

Tesla

Thank you for designing another ‘Car of the future’ that looks like a car and not what Lazybones said. This is exactly what I was talking about in the CR-Z story.

Please whatever you do don’t let Toyota screw it up.

Keep churning out cars like this and other companies are going to look pretty stupid with their ‘lunchbox’ cars…..

Regards

Whitbomb07
david jones

CA may want to read this its confirmed as NUMMI

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda held a joint press in Palo Alto, California to announce that the two companies would be collaborating on electric vehicle development and production, with Tesla will taking over the recently closed NUMMI factory in Fremont, CA to produce the Model S sedan.

Toyota will invest $50 million for a private placement of Tesla common stock and the state of California will provide a sales tax abatement to Tesla for capital equipment expenditures to tool up the plant. Musk estimated that the abatement will amount to about $20 million over the next several years.

According to Musk, production of the Model S will bring about 1,000 employees back to the NUMMI plant to produce about 20,000 cars a year at first, and as the facility expands – possibly to include the production of more models – it could employ up to 10,000 workers. Musk revealed that some employees have already been rehired, but was non-committal on the subject of union representation. NUMMI was the only Toyota plant in North America that was unionized.

An additional benefit to Tesla from this deal is that it will be able to take advantage of the Toyota production system and possibly some of Toyota’s suppliers. That’s sure to help Tesla avoid many of the logistical problems that hampered early Roadster production and costs.

Production of the Model S is still planned to start in 2012 and Musk said more advanced prototypes would be revealed later this year. No decisions have been made yet about additional vehicles to be produced at the plant which previously had a capacity of more than 300,000 vehicles a year.
Steve-Poyza

Hahahahahahahhaa! Some people say some funny stuff.

I’m hoping you all agree that its almost humorous looking that the comparison of the Tesla to the Prius. Its hard to find cars that are simply beautiful like the Tesla Model S these days, I really hope it goes into production soon. And luckily, I highly doubt Tesla would let Toyota alter the design at all.

I am happy that Renault and Nissan will beat Toyota to producing the first production EV vehicle. They’ve been testing for a while now and Toyota it seems are only starting now. Looks like they’ve been paying too much attention to the hybrid.