BREAKING: Toyota teaming up with Tesla to build electric cars

[wtmusic]

California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger has apparently let slip ahead of a scheduled 5pm Pacific announcement that Tesla Motors will be teaming up with Toyota to build electric cars.

While some might speculate that the agreement could result in the re-opening of Fremont's idle New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant (NUMMI), SFGate says that this is somewhat unlikely. Any production agreement will likely involve the forthcoming Model S sedan, and NUMMI's facilities are significantly larger than what the model will require, as it was originally scaled to accommodate the joint venture between Toyota and General Motors which required much greater capacity. The smart money is on a new factory location, probably in Downey, CA (in Los Angeles County).

It is not yet clear what Toyota will bring to the table or what, if any money or stock is changing hands with this rumored agreement. Also, no word yet on how Mercedes-Benz feels about all this – the German automaker already has a 10 percent stake in the company after opening its coffers to the struggling EV manufacturer back in May of 2009.

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/05/20/breaking-governator-says-tesla-teaming-up-with-toyota-in-cali/

[Beetwasher]

1. Smart Thing For Toyota To Do Given Their Recent Bad PR

Smart for other reasons too.

[Liberty Belle]

2. Brilliant move for Toyota; this is also Schwarzenegger's attempt at redemption;

he wants to be a green industry spokesman after his disastrous gig as Gov is up.

[wtmusic]

4. You mean the "Hydrogen Hummer" schtick hasn't already convinced everyone?

[vercetti2021]

3. Well this is new to me

Just hope they get it right with the brake system or else there's going to be a lot of consequences, such as crashing into others cars or bystanders, which will result in serious injury or death, and to schwarzenegger, your time is up and this won't boost your numbers in time when november rolls around.

[wtmusic]

5. update

"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."

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/05/20/breaking-governator-says-tesla-teaming-up-with-toyota-in-cali/

[glitch]

6. YAY! This makes me happy.

My corolla was made at Nummi 23 years ago, the autoworkers there make the BEST cars.

[Downtown Hound]

7. Never underestimate the power overwhelmingly bad PR can have

on a business to finally make it do the things it should have done 20 years ago.