Wild-Ass Retraction Of The Day: Tesla Deal Old News

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Here comes a possible explanation for yesterday’s Wild-Ass Rumor Of The Day: Toyota says that “a jointly-developed RAV4 electric vehicle will be built at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Inc. (TMMC) in Woodstock, Ontario beginning in 2012.” Now what about that billion dollar deal?

“As previously announced,” Toyota can’t help to drily remark, “Toyota will pay Tesla approximately $100 million to supply the electric powertrain, which includes the battery, motor, gear box and power electronics for the RAV4 EV. Tesla will build the electric powertrains at its production facility in Palo Alto, California and then ship them to TMMC for final assembly into the vehicle.”

No new deal. Old news. No billion. $100 million. Approximately.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Suspekt Suspekt on Aug 05, 2011

    I understand that this isnt the $1 billion dollar deal suggested earlier, but is this not the best news to come out regarding Tesla since its inception? To meet all of Toyota's rigourous quality standards as a supplier of such a high profile program I think speaks volumes about value of the R&D Tesla has done to date. I am in no way a Tesla fan and have not spent anytime analyzing the deal between TOMOCO and Tesla, but I have been very impressed with this relationship Telsa has managed to work out. This deal WILL be the cash flow mechanism that allows Tesla to actually pursue other areas of its business plan. That, or this is the business plan going forward.

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