Forbes: What Do Toyota And Mercedes See In Tesla? A Bit Of Themselves

[sajeevar]

Interesting article

What Do Toyota And Mercedes See In Tesla? A Bit Of Themselves - Forbes

 

[VolkerP]

Toyota, meanwhile, gave Tesla a $100 million contract to supply the electric motor, power electronics, battery, gearbox and software for the new $50,000 RAV4 EV. The SUVs are made alongside Tesla’s Model S sedan in a Fremont, Calif., factory formerly operated by Toyota and General Motors.

I don't think the last sentence is fully correct. AFAIK the RAV4 EV is assembled somewhere else (Canada?). Perhaps the drive trains are produced in Fremont. But I thought that $100m of the govt loan where for a drive train production facility in Menlo park. Can anyone shed light on this?

 

[Doug_G]

Yes, the Rav4 EV is assembled in Canada, where they build all the regular Rav4s. The drive trains are built in California.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

I think that all these brands (Tesla, Toyota and Mercedes) have features that could be of interest for each other.
For instance I saw the new Lexus IS (as it's very well known Lexus is the luxury brand of Toyota) and I have been amazed by its safety standards. The Lexus IS has pedestrian and obstacle detection and avoidance both for the front side and the rear side, ACC, blind spot detection.
I hope that one day Model S and Gen III will have all these features (including AWD and power folding mirrors).

 

[cwerdna]

I don't think the last sentence is fully correct. AFAIK the RAV4 EV is assembled somewhere else (Canada?). Perhaps the drive trains are produced in Fremont. But I thought that $100m of the govt loan where for a drive train production facility in Menlo park. Can anyone shed light on this?

Yeah, I think the article is off on their claims of where the Rav4 EV assembled. It contradicts Toyota | Toyota and Tesla Announce Decision to Build RAV4 Electric Vehicle at Toyota's Woodstock, Ontario Production Facility.

As for $100 million, if you're talking about the $ Toyota paid Tesla, it's in TSLA's SEC filings. Toyota Rav4 EV Forum View topic - Why did Toyota build Rav4 EV? What happens after 2014 ? has an excerpt. If you Google for some keywords in from excerpts, you can find the filings in question.