Toyota and Tesla Motors team to make electric cars

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Tesla Motors is partnering with Toyota to make electric cars at a defunct auto plant in California in a deal that is expected to create thousands of jobs, the two companies announced Thursday.

Part of the deal will involve Toyota purchasing $50 million of Tesla’s common stock, the companies said in a joint statement.

“Toyota is a company founded on innovation, quality, and commitment to sustainable mobility. It is an honor and a powerful endorsement of our technology that Toyota would choose to invest in and partner with Tesla,” said Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk. “We look forward to learning and benefiting from Toyota’s legendary engineering, manufacturing, and production expertise.”

The companies intend to collaborate on the development of electric vehicles, parts, and production system and engineering support, Toyota President Akio Toyoda in a joint press conference Thursday.

“Through this partnership, by working together with a venture business such as Tesla, Toyota would like to learn from the challenging spirit, quick decision-making, and flexibility that Tesla has. Decades ago, Toyota was also born as a venture business. By partnering with Tesla, my hope is that all Toyota employees will recall that ‘venture business spirit,’ and take on the challenges of the future.”

The venture is expected to create thousands of jobs at the recently shuttered New United Motor Manufacturing plant, or Nummi, in Fremont.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also spoke at Thursday's press conference and thanked the companies for bringing their business to the state.

"This all hapened because we created tax incentives for this company and this partnertship," Schwarzenegger said.

Musk said several former employees of the plant have already been rehired.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/20/toyota-and-tesla-motors-team-up-to-make-electric-cars/?hpt=T2
 
Wow that's big news..... I hope it all pans out?

I am rooting for anything that can help the economy and be more energy efficient than gas if it actually is? Maybe they can make something that is realistic to the masses, like the Model T was?
 
All I can say is good, Cali needs those jobs union or non-union. And maybe what Toyota learned from the Prius and what Tesla learned can cross over to both companies.
 
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In a lot of newer (last 20 years or so) houses the garage outlet is on the same GFCI chain as the bathroom outlets. This is going to cause an issue when a car is charging and someone uses a hairdryer.

Maybe the NEC will be amended to require a dedicated garage circuit.
 
Tesla only need about 1k people when NUMMI laid off almost 20k total when it shut down. The news last night said that the jobs will not come back so quickly, and in the long run it most likely will not be a union plant, but anything is better than nothing.
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
In a lot of newer (last 20 years or so) houses the garage outlet is on the same GFCI chain as the bathroom outlets. This is going to cause an issue when a car is charging and someone uses a hairdryer.

Maybe the NEC will be amended to require a dedicated garage circuit.


Not only that, in the long run there needs to be some 240V outlet to charge the car, that'll be a lot faster than using 110V with big wiring.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: brianl703
In a lot of newer (last 20 years or so) houses the garage outlet is on the same GFCI chain as the bathroom outlets. This is going to cause an issue when a car is charging and someone uses a hairdryer.

Maybe the NEC will be amended to require a dedicated garage circuit.


Not only that, in the long run there needs to be some 240V outlet to charge the car, that'll be a lot faster than using 110V with big wiring.


Maybe they can even pull all 3 of the 120V lines into the garage for a ~350V outlet for charging.
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
In a lot of newer (last 20 years or so) houses the garage outlet is on the same GFCI chain as the bathroom outlets. This is going to cause an issue when a car is charging and someone uses a hairdryer.

Maybe the NEC will be amended to require a dedicated garage circuit.


I don't think this is a big issue. Running a dedicated circuit to a garage isn't a hard job. Many garages also have multiple circuits to allow for power tools to be used concurrently. We just installed a subpanel in our detached garage for that reason.
 
Originally Posted By: rudolphna

Maybe they can even pull all 3 of the 120V lines into the garage for a ~350V outlet for charging.


Very few residential homes are wired for 3-phase power..and what you get between two legs of a 120V 3-phase system is 208V.
 
Originally Posted By: kb01
Running a dedicated circuit to a garage isn't a hard job.


It isn't for you or I, but for someone who doesn't know how to do it, it can turn very expensive, very quickly.
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
Originally Posted By: kb01
Running a dedicated circuit to a garage isn't a hard job.


It isn't for you or I, but for someone who doesn't know how to do it, it can turn very expensive, very quickly.


They probably cannot afford an electric car in the next 10-15 years anyways.
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
Originally Posted By: rudolphna

Maybe they can even pull all 3 of the 120V lines into the garage for a ~350V outlet for charging.


Very few residential homes are wired for 3-phase power..and what you get between two legs of a 120V 3-phase system is 208V.


Actually, instead of a 208V since there are 2 phases, the car can be charged as 2 channels of 120V and double the speed instead of having it charged as single channel 208V (208 / 120 = 73% faster) in theory, as well as the benefit of safety in reduced voltage.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear

Actually, instead of a 208V since there are 2 phases, the car can be charged as 2 channels of 120V and double the speed instead of having it charged as single channel 208V (208 / 120 = 73% faster) in theory, as well as the benefit of safety in reduced voltage.


Then the car would be charged with 240V (assuming a standard residential setup) but neither of the hot wires would be more than 120V with respect to ground so that preserves the safety benefit. (There is 240V between the two hot wires coming from the transformer--this is often erroneously called 2-phase power).

208V only comes into play with 3-phase power and that is normally only found in commercial buildings. Even in the case of 208V, each of the hot wires is still only 120V to ground so that still preserves the safety benefit.
 
Originally Posted By: rudolphna
Maybe they can even pull all 3 of the 120V lines into the garage for a ~350V outlet for charging.
I sure hope you don't wire anything up at home!

It only takes seconds to check the Tesla site and find out that the car will change at a rate of 32 miles range per hour plugged into a 240 VAC 40 amp electric dryer type socket. The faster rate of 56 miles/hr needs a hard-wired charger.
 
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