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Tesla Signs $60 Million Contract With Toyota
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."
about f* time
Anyone else initially assume it was about the band, Tesla?
g o l f c a r t
It's about time that this finally happened. It makes sense that Toyota was the one to jump on this.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
The resources of Toyota. The electric car know-how of Tesla. The factory's in the US and will create jobs here. Absolutely excellent news.
and a very fast one, at that
Table-ized A.I.
indeed, the TGV is electric for a very fscking good reason.
I'm a touch confused by this announcement.
Toyota already sells the Rav4 as a full EV. I see them on the road regularly. Several bay area cities use them as official vehicles.
On the other hand I am a Tesla fan, and I have owned several Toyotas so I see this partnership as a good thing.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Toyota cant R and D this themselves after decades of research?
sounds like a back scratching deal to me
I thought he was dead.
beed doing my own blog trying to help save the world www.plugin.com
An electric car is still a car--an absurdly overweight waste of energy. If you want something that can really make a difference, get an electric bicycle: cheaper, cleaner, healthier, and ~1000 mpg equivalent.
the most powerful intellect is that unbounded by indubitable preconception
...the buyout will be announced?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
how about a regular bike? 10 miles per donut.
From what I see, a doughnut averages 300 calories and from what I see here you burn 30 calories per mile - so 10 miles per donut.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Toyota has already done an all-electric Rav4. Those of us who have seen Who Killed The Electric Car remember it being featured on there (though not as prominently as the GM EV1).
The only real question here is why they are working with Tesla. There are plenty of good opportunities for conspiracy theorists on this one...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
Kill all hipsters.
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!
I've got a skateboard and a really, really long hill...
The 2011 RAV4s will be the last year of the V6. RAV4s are very popular. The V6 version tends to sell the quickest fetching full MSRP from the dealer.
Toyota knows their own market. The new Hybrid i4 for 2012 is out of fear to meet the the new CAFE standards, not because of market demand.
Life is not for the lazy.
I know it says as much in the tags, but the Volt is not an electric car. It's a hybrid. GM lied. Google it.
Yup, a golfcart that easily out-preforms whatever clunker you have sitting in your garage right now.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
How is it not electric?
As to it being a hybrid, it was always a hybrid. It has a fuel filler nozzle, how did you somehow think that meant it wasn't a hybrid? GM called it a hybrid the whole time.
I'm having a massive problem trying to understand why people care about this at all.
The car runs (about) 40 miles on electricity only with full performance.
Then it runs perhaps 300 more on gas with full performance.
This is what it was stated it would do, that's what it does. I don't see how connecting the ICE to the wheels in the non-EV mode is a sin.
I honestly find the fact that current Volt users are only getting 35 miles on EV instead of 40 and the poor (36-ish) mpg in gas mode to be a bigger deal than how the ICE drives the wheels. And presumably not connecting the ICE to the wheels would only make the mpg in gas mode even worse!
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Toyota brought an electric RAV4 to my school 15 years ago and our teacher took a few of us for a drive. Buzzing unwary pedestrians was the best part.
Nice name...
Um, that's still 10 miles per donut, no matter how many resources it took to create the donut. If you're counting the cost of creating the donut in the bike's MPD count, then you need to count the cost of creating the gasoline in a car's MPG. Do you think gasoline extracts, refines, and transports itself?
An electric car is still a car--an absurdly overweight waste of energy.
That depends entirely on the application you are using the car for. If you are talking about very short trips where you have to haul yourself and not much else, then a car is definitely pretty wasteful. Otherwise the picture isn't so clear for most people. Whether something is wasteful depends on both the circumstances and available alternatives.
If you want something that can really make a difference, get an electric bicycle: cheaper, cleaner, healthier, and ~1000 mpg equivalent.
That'll be loads of fun doing my 20 mile commute to work when the temperature is -10F.
The only way to (legally) distribute "profits" outside the company is through dividends.
Not even remotely true. Profits can be distributed many ways, not all of them direct. A stock buyback is a way to distribute (indirectly) profits by using the to prop up the share price, thereby allowing investors to sell their stock at a higher price. Companies can liquidate assets or spin off parts of the company and send the profits to the investors. Companies can purchase assets for individuals or corporations. Companies can give cash donations (both charitable and non-charitable) outside the company which are not dividends. A company can be sold in part or entirely and profits can be distributed in the sales.
No, GM called it a range-extended electric vehicle. Now that it has recently been revealed that the Volt cannot achieve full top speed without the gasoline engine running, and that in fact the gasoline engine is connected to the drive wheels via a transmission - it is not a battery-electric vehicle, a range-extended electric vehicle, etc. It is simply a very, very expensive and inefficient hybrid.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
I don't need a 4x4. I have told my gal several times that I'd like to get (or maybe build) a two-seat, covered trike (tuns out it's called a velocar) which is hybrid -- pedal/electric -- and the pedals are just geared up to a generator that runs the system and shunts extra energy over to a decent battery. Tired? Stop pedaling. Need to get to work without being sweaty? No need to pedal at all. Coming home from work, going shopping, working out, or just out for a fun drive with your SO? Pedal away as hard as you like. Hook up the battery at night to recharge if needed. If the vehicle has cargo capacity and the occupants are protected from the weather, it'd be awesome.
Put identity in the browser.
I have a friend who is long retired from the equipment and trucks business, but at one time he was the largest Toyota reseller and parts supplier in USA. this is back when it was all made in japan. This is from him..when they stopped using all japanese management and went to white guys, and shifted production to the US, their quality control went to shit, they started dicking over their dealers real bad, nickle and diming them, and..well..stuff like that, he was getting into swearing by the end of his rant about modern toyota. He just ceased doing any wholesale business with them and went elsewhere to other brands.
Basically they went from an engineering company to just another large vanilla craptastic wall street management cheap ass company with maximum shorter term profits in mind..quality has now fallen off their radar, and ethics don't pay....and I think we saw some results of that last summer.
Just FYI.
Well, since this is the de-facto AWD thread, is this RAV4 going to be 2WD or AWD? I'd actually dump my Subaru for one if it were AWD. And put up the solar panels to charge it.
Sorry, desert dwellers, I live where I have to dodge falling trees on icy roads on my way back from database server migrations at 2AM.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)