Toyota Introduces Electric RAV4, Powered By Tesla Motor

thecarchik writes "As they say, everything old is new again. Fourteen years after it launched its very first RAV4 crossover at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Toyota returned to LA to launch an all-electric version of its latest RAV4. And this one is, as the logos in a teaser photo released earlier said, 'powered by Tesla.' The launch of the second version of the RAV4 EV is on a fast timeline, led by a working group made up of Toyota's Technical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a team from Tesla Motors. The partnership will build 35 'Phase Zero' test versions of the latest RAV4 EV next year, with production launch expected in 2012."

Comments

They did this in the 90s.

[Kenja]

During the zero emission days in California there where some electric RAV4 vehicles around. But of course, you couldn't buy them, only lease. And as soon as GM got the law repealed they where yanked back and destroyed. One person here in Marin refused to return his however. Still see it around from time to time.

Re:They did this in the 90s.

[MobyDisk]

A lot of this is perspective...

GM caught a lot of flak for how it behaved after the law was repealed (destroying all EV1s), but they weren't the root cause despite what popular documentaries say.

GM did a lot of other things to make the EV1 look bad. They probably had some valid reasons - the car was expensive to build, and battery technology was not where it is today, although it isn't that far different.

In the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? they interview a man who was a higher-up assigned to the EV1 project. Throughout the documentary, he points out ways that GM intentionally thwarted the project while assigning him to make it look like they were trying to promote the car but failing. I can't remember his name though.

...arguing that hybrid vehicles (powered by gas but with batteries to sustain them at idle and to enable regenerative braking)

They really argued for hydrogen-powered cars, which they knew then, and know now, are not going to happen any time soon. IMHO, their main goal was not to get time to innovate.

All the conspiracy theories about GM blocking the electric vehicle hinge on one assumption - that an electric vehicle is cost-competitive with gasoline vehicles right now.

True, but I think the comparison would be a lot more fair if you stop assuming that people need to transport 5 people and 200lbs of luggage 250 miles per trip. Gasoline cars can do that, and electric cars cannot. So you are right that they aren't apples-for-apples competitive.

if California wants to encourage new technologies by drafting legal requirements, then pulls a double-cross by dropping the requirements before companies can recoup the money spent creating those new technologies, why should the companies be obligated to let California benefit from said technologies?

I have to grant you this is a hell of a point - I never thought of it that way.

HighGear Media

[spun]

Good eye, those sights are both "Part of HighGear Media" according to the banner. HighGear appears to be "a vertical publishing company publishing more premium automotive content than anyone in the world through websites targeting key buyer and vehicle segments." according to their website. They have a "network of 100 plus owned and operated automotive websites, anchored by the TheCarConnection.com, currently reaches nearly 3 million in-market car shoppers a month. High Gear Media is building some of the fatest growing automotive destinations on the Web."

Fatest growing destinations on the web?

The amount of market blather on that site made my brain hurt. This whole thing smacks of SCO linkery-dickery. I guess I went down the wrong damn rabbit hole suggesting Toyota might be behind this.

Re:HighGear Media

[MyLongNickName]

s/sights/sites