Not two kinds. Not two types. Two. As in what’s sitting in your two car garage. In what must be the eclipse of brazenness, Tesla announced that “on Friday it signed a memorandum of understanding with Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp to deliver two electric vehicles to the world’s largest automaker by the end of month.” And then they sent the press release for that momentous event to all wire services, including Reuters.
It’s not even a contract. It’s a MoU, akin to us sending an email to our friendly car dealer down the road, saying “I intend to come by and trade-in two cars sometime next month.” Take that to the bank and try to get money on it.
According to the Reuters story, Tesla will equip existing Toyota vehicles with Tesla electric powertrains. This story is getting curiouser and curiouser.
Never send an MoU, to do a PO’s job.
Hope they used the vibe body…
It sounds to me like Toyota is still feeling out Tesla to see what their tech is really worth. Toyota is in a position where they could probably buy all or part of Tesla if they think it will work for them. With Nissan producing the Leaf, Toyota has to up their game.
But Toyota being Toyota, they sure as heck aren’t going to risk it unless they’re really, really sure. If Tesla proves inept at this task, then Toyota won’t lose much. If Tesla brings the goods, Toyota has some assurance that Tesla is worth something.
Of course Tesla is making a big deal of it, they are still a very shaky company and haven’t developed a wider production vehicle yet. They rely on hype/advertising to bring investment, which supports their development until they reach a sustainable size and production or (more likely) get bought out. In that they are not unusual. Look at the history of Lamborghini, Jaguar, Lotus, etc.
If the picture is telling the story, Tesla will build two cars and an itsy-bitsy truck.
I take Toyo is purty smart, if Tesla did well in the prototypes, Toyo will for sure publish on the front page, if it fails they will hide the association with Tesla.
What Tesla is doing u think the whole Toyo engineering staffs cannot come up with something like this?
I am sure the Jap engineers had probably explored all these options decades ago, just there was not enuf demand on the market.
On the subject of Lexus LFA tagged at 300 some grand will it be another Toyo 2000GT? of the 70s’
At that price is really up there or even above with the Horse, Bull, Trident , Star emblems.
I cant see them sell a ton of them either.
Why cant they make a V8 MR2? perhaps slightly bigger, wider.
I finished the article: “At Toyota we have a lot to learn from this partnership. We’ve just begun working with Tesla but I believe that we’ve taken an important first step,” Sasaki said. Reads like two cars is a beginning, not end.
What does God need with a starship?
Jim! You don’t ask the Almighty for his ID!
Once Toyota takes delivery of the cars, they will disassemble, reverse engineer, steal all the best ideas from the cars, and then build their own electric cars without Tesla.