Tesla Signs $60 Million Contract With Toyota 233
thecarchik writes "Tesla Motors announced that it has reached a $60 million deal with Toyota to develop the powertrain for an electric version of the strong-selling Rav4 sport utility vehicle. A prototype RAV4 Electric will be unveiled by Toyota at November's Los Angeles Auto Show. The company plans to sell the electric RAV4 starting in 2012, the same year that a number of new electric cars will join the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevrolet Volt in the US market."
Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
Toyota cant R and D this themselves after decades of research?
sounds like a back scratching deal to me
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They already make Rav4 EVs (Score:3, Insightful)
It reminds me of news last year about building charging stations across California, when such facilities have lain abandoned for a decade.
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do people keep saying this? Do you drive 200 miles a day at highway speeds? If not, then what's the problem? Drive it during the day and charge it overnight. It's 5 miles to my work, so I have 10/day there, and another 10 if I run a bunch of errands. So a car with a 30 mile range would let me do my normal routine without any worries and would include a 10 mile backup.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
fucking city-living hipsters (Score:3, Insightful)
So... how do I move heavy stuff? How do I travel when it's raining? When it's fucking cold? When it's fucking hot? When it's more than a few kms?
I don't own a car and I use public transportation, yet I can see a lot of uses for one. A bike is not, and never will be, a replacement for a car.
That's uncharitable (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they *could* do it, but Tesla has a powertrain that's pretty much exactly what they'd need already developed for the Model S, and they're presumably already gearing up for production of the components.
Tesla's proven they know what they're doing with the Roadster, so I can see why Toyota would want to spend $60M to adapt an almost-exactly-right design with a very low risk profile than spend probably more pulling together their existing R&D projects and tooling up, with all the entailing higher risk and extra development time.
The hybrid powertrains they've been developing are conceptually very similar to an all-electric powertrain, but there's a lot of mechanical re-engineering they'd have to do, and that takes time. Hell, maybe $60M is a loss, but they're doing this deal because all their best engineers are busy working on another project and they just don't have the staff to handle a big rush job right now. Staffing is a big deal!
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Because sometimes its nice to go out for a drive on the weekends. .... So if you live in Silicon Valley
There's no car rentals in all of Silicon Valley?
I'll make an embarrassing public admission... I live in a house and ... gasp ... I drive a sporty little car. You should hear my older coworkers whine about my decision ... OMG what if you needed to get sheets of plywood from home depot? OMG what if a rugged dirt road mountain sprung forth from the earth in the middle of my commute and you don't have 4wd? OMG OMG!
Well, I've found thru experience I can rent a giant truck in scarce minutes for practically nothing and I'm in the burbs. I would imagine city dwellers have it even easier. I would guess every other year I need to rent a truck for an afternoon. Its not an issue.
99% of the time, I drive the car I WANT to drive, and the 1% of the time I NEED something else, I just rent the perfect vehicle for the job.
The best part is my car payment and insurance bills are about half of my coworkers giant SUV payments. One months savings pays for a lifetime of truck rentals, the rest, every month, is pure gravy... which pays for those weekend getaways the SUV drivers can't afford...
I would imagine the electric car situation is very similar. The fact that its not a road trip wanna be RV is a very rare and easily solved problem, anywhere you can rent a REAL RV.
Re:They already make Rav4 EVs (Score:5, Insightful)
Pba batteries are too heavy for their energy density and LiOn are still very expensive.This has not helped the EV market but has helped keep oil flowing for the oil industry.
LoB
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:1, Insightful)
What does this have to do with the band Tesla? Start your own thread, you moron.
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Excellent news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:might i say (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm thinking this might be a "woosh" event. Subtly done if so.
Re:might i say (Score:3, Insightful)
Toyota owns 20% of Subaru now (GM's former 20% share - it goes from company to company).
Subaru has a very well defined niche that is not at risk. Despite not offering hybrids, they were one of the few vehicle manufacturers that had sales increase in past years. This is partly due to the fact that they've been marketing one of their vehicles (the Outback) as the fuel efficient SUV alternative for over a decade, so were well placed when the anti-SUV backlash hit. They also are tied with Audi for having some of the best AWD systems on the planet.
As an interim solution, Subaru started putting CVTs into their cars a year ago.
They're working on a few joint design efforts with Toyota, and I suspect we'll see a hybrid Subaru come soon using Toyota expertise. That and/or a gasoline direct injection engine are what Subaru is going to need soon.