BREAKING: Toyota And Tesla Partnering On EV?

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that Toyota will team up with Tesla to “build electric cars in California.” The governor made this shocking revelation at Google’s I/O Conference today, and told reporters [via the Sacramento Bee]

Today is a very exciting day for me because … I am also going over to the Bay Area to talk about Tesla and Toyota forming a partnership, where they take one of the Toyota cars and make them electric. And again, they’re going to do that here in California.

The obvious scenarios involve joint manufacturing at Toyota’s former GM joint-venture plant NUMMI in Fremont, CA, although there has been no confirmation of these or any other details yet. [UPDATE: According to insidebayarea.com, a Downey, CA city councilman


confirms that Tesla will build the Model S at NUMMI. The Downey City Council had planned to approve a lease deal for a Tesla factory site, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk called to announce that his firm would be setting up shop at NUMMI]

Daimler is Tesla’s only current OEM partner, and it would have right of first refusal on any acquisition offer made for the California EV firm. Cooperation was focused on an EV version of Daimler’s fading Smart city car. Tesla was briefly mooted as a homegrown savior for NUMMI, which Toyota moved to wind down after GM abandoned the JV in bankruptcy last year (production there ceased on April 1 of this year). That suggestion was emphatically rejected by Tesla, for the simple reason that

we need about 500,000 square feet for our plant. NUMMI is 5 million.

Tesla has been expected to announce a production site for its Model S sedan, widely speculated to be located in Southern California. Consideration of a brownfield site in Downey, AC had previously drawn protests, casting Tesla’s 2011 Model S production schedule into doub t.

As the industry leader in hybrid technology, Toyota has always been wary of rushing plug-ins to market, particularly lithium-ion batteries. A plug-in Prius has been tested and talked about for ages, but Toyota’s timeline for series production has always been conservative, especially compared to Nissan’s Leaf and GM’s Volt dashes. Even recent test drives of pre-production Prius PHEVs don’t mention sale dates or prices.

But Toyota’s lithium-ion partnership with Panasonic is clearly the key player here. Though Toyota doesn’t seem keen to make the li-ion leap, Toyota-Panasonic is close to a deal to supply batteries to the now Ford-less Mazda. And look at that: Tesla and Panasonic recently inked a cell-supply deal. This might be starting to make some sense…

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • TCowner We've had a 64.5 Mustang in the family for the past 40 years. It is all original, Rangoon Red coupe with 289 (one of the first instead of the 260), Rally Pac, 4-speed, factory air, every option. Always gets smiles and thumbs ups.
  • ToolGuy This might be a good option for my spouse when it becomes available -- thought about reserving one but the $500 deposit is a little too serious. Oh sorry, that was the Volvo EX30, not the Mustang. Is Volvo part of Ford? Is the Mustang an EV? I'm so confused.
  • Mikey My late wife loved Mustangs ..We alway rented one while travelling . GM blood vetoed me purchasing one . 3 years after retirement bought an 08 rag top, followed by a 15 EB Hard top, In 18 i bought a low low mileage 05 GT rag with a stick.. The car had not been properly stored. That led to rodent issues !! Electrical nightmare. Lots of bucks !! The stick wasn't kind to my aging knees.. The 05 went to a long term dedicated Mustang guy. He loves it .. Today my garage tenant is a sweet 19 Camaro RS rag 6yl Auto. I just might take it out of hibernation this weekend. The Mustang will always hold a place in my heart.. Kudos to Ford for keeping it alive . I refuse to refer to the fake one by that storied name .
  • Ajla On the Mach-E, I still don't like it but my understanding is that it helps allow Ford to continue offering a V8 in the Mustang and F-150. Considering Dodge and Ram jumped off a cliff into 6-cylinder land there's probably some credibility to that story.
  • Ajla If I was Ford I would just troll Stellantis at all times.
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