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This week Toyota Motor Corp and Tesla Motors struck a surprise deal to re-open the NUMMI plant in Fremont. For the last 25 years, Toyota and General Motors were partners in producing cars at the Fremont plant. The new partnership between Tesla and Toyota bears no resemblence to the GM/Toyota partnership. It will be a Tesla manufacturing facility with no reference to Toyota. Tesla is a small, 5 year old, Palo Alto company that produces electric cars. Toyota is an international conglomorate that knows how to build cars on a large scale. A perfect partner for Tesla. NUMMI stands for New United Motors Manufacturing Inc.
source: SF Chronicle 5/22/10
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This is cool Cal because it is close to where we live. I never knew that the plant combined with tesla. Anyway, How do you think the two completely different corps will work together. Also Tesla produces more high end cars then tesla, so how will they work together with different specialties?
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question Kaitlin, I think that Tesla and Toyota will work perfectly fine with one another, because when one is in the process of building high end cars, you only can produce a couple every so many months. So within factories, Tesla cars would take a small percentage of the workload, and the common non-expensive cars would take the rest of the work. It's very similar to Mercedes Benz and their work ethic. They sell cars in the mid range of pricing. Some cars are fairly reasonable, and some of their cars are over the top nice. But the nicer cars are produced less often then the more common. Both have a balanced workload, which just leads to a larger profit.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if it will be the best decision for Tesla to become involved with Toyota just because Tesla is such a small company. I dont know many people outside of the bay area that have ever heard of a Tesla, and people on almost every continent drive Toyotas. TEsla should be careful not to be swallowed up by Toyota, because they have some very innovative technology that is different from almost any other car company and this is something that makes them a very special company.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post Cal! Hopefully the the partnership that these two companies have makes Tesla grow into a internationally known company. This can also give Toyota great publicity, and new technological ideas. It can give both companies good technological ideas because these two companies are very different. Toyota may even make very fuel efficient cars, so that people can save lots of money.
ReplyDeleteToyota's main identity is selling cheaper cars internationally. Tesla is a very recent company that sells sports cars that needs to make its presence in the world known. THis is a good move for both companies. Toyota can increase its status by moving up with Tesla, and Tesla can become more international with TOyota.
ReplyDeleteIts exciting to see a company which started into my hometown rapidly grow into a multinational corporation. I hope that their electrical vehicles do improve pollution, but at the same time i recognize that this wont solve many of our environmental problems. For example, I remember when Neal Khosla's dad came and talked to us about the environment, and told us that only 2% of greenhouse gases come from cars. I think that while Tesla is doing a good thing in many ways, people shouldn't feel that they have done enough simply by buying an electric car. We are all part of the problem, therefore we must each contribute towards a solution.
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