What's Wrong With This Picture: Toyesla Synergy Drive Edition

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Given Toyota’s dominance of the hybrid market, and its early skepticism about pure-electric vehicles, it’s safe to say that we didn’t expect this badge to show up anytime soon. But sure enough, Toyota’s new corporate EV badge will grace the firm’s RAV-4 EV concept, which debuts at this fall’s LA Auto Show. And it won’t be the most jarring image on that vehicle either…

Yes, the little Silicon Valley sportscar firm is now powering the first Li-ion (and potentially the first mass-market-ish) EV ever made by the most dominant automaker of the last several decades. Wrap you mind around that one.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Mercennarius Mercennarius on Nov 10, 2010

    Honestly I think Tesla is the last company i'd want to partner with to help build an EV if I was Toyota... Toyota would be better off borrowing Nissans technology or making their own...

  • ThriftyTechie ThriftyTechie on Nov 10, 2010

    Here we go, TTAC is going to unleash a tedious Toyota EV Birth watch which spans dozens of posts which will in retrospect be completely meaningless. Or do they only do features like that for GM?

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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