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Toyota Partners With Tesla To Make Electric Cars

An anonymous reader writes "Toyota just announced that it will invest $50 million in Tesla Motors and the two companies will partner to manufacture electric vehicles to meet California's growing demand for greener cars. Bay Area residents should be especially excited, as this venture is expected to create thousands of new jobs in the San Francisco Bay area, and is sure to be a boon to California's flagging economy. Tesla fans as well should rejoice as the new partnership will allow the EV startup to bring its highly coveted, iconic design to more affordable electric vehicles like the Model S sedan, which will sell for $49,900 and gets 300 miles on a 3- to 5-hour charge."

8 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Did I miss something? by Darth+Sdlavrot · · Score: 1, Troll

    You left off labor costs in California in general and the Bay Area in particular.

    Wait for the announcement that they're moving production somewhere else with lower labor costs.

  2. Re:Did I miss something? by Rogerborg · · Score: -1, Troll

    Oooh, ooh, you also forgot "green cars". Attention, ecomentals: what do you think is generating the electricity to power the (energy intensive) construction and use of your "green" car? Fairy farts?

    Electric cars will drive demand for electricity that may (and should, but who knows?) be generated from renewables or even (hold your nose) "clean" coal, but right now? You're just moving the emissions from your exhaust to the dirty old coal plant up the road, plus the even worse one in China where they dug up the Unobtanium to make your car.

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  3. Re:Damn, I wish they partnered with Aptera by Rogerborg · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'm pretty sure that the environmental impact of the current generation of electric cars is actually more than petroleum ones, just much better hidden. The electricity that's used to make and power them today is coming mostly from burning fossil fuels in 30 year old power plants. That might change in 10 years time, but it's not 10 years time, it's now.

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  4. Re:There will be no stopping this by Rogerborg · · Score: 1, Troll

    My goodness, a Toyota joke? Are people still making those? Well, since you forgot to bring the funny, here's an actually amusing commentary to make up for it.

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  5. Honda Clarity? by mvar · · Score: -1, Troll

    Why do they even bother with electric cars? The recharging time they need every few hours makes them at least inconvenient for everyday use. I believe that hydrogen power is the way to go.

  6. Re:The thing that makes electrics un-economical by s122604 · · Score: 1, Troll

    The batteries wear out and have to be replaced every few years.... It's just that those darn batteries are real expensive and don't last long.

    Citation needed...

  7. Toyota quality? by scottwilkins · · Score: -1, Troll

    Great, Toyota quality in a Tesla. There goes Tesla down the tubes... Personally, I see this whole deal failing. Toyota is a preditory company, they will invest in Tesla only to bring them down in order to remove competition in the market. In 5 years, Telsa will be gone. Mark my words.

  8. Re:This again? by commodore64_love · · Score: 0, Troll

    Bzzz. The power outages were caused by the CA government creating a central electricity trading market, which only allowed trades once a day. That meant companies were not able to react to the constantly changing customer demand, and that led to rolling blackout. In other words - per usual - blame government and price controls for the shortages.

    Would You Like To Read More?
    http://reason.org/news/show/powering-up-california

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