Comments on: Stealthy Combo Tesla + Toyota Sneak Out a Surprise: the RAV4 EV!

By: John W. Rivard

John W. Rivard — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 01:40:04 +0000

This should be a good partnership for both Tesla and Toyota. They seem to me to have a pretty good split of strengths and weaknesses. Both companies and the general public should benefit. Somebody has to do the initial work and put those first few models out there even if not many people can afford them. I have not heard about any complaints yet from Tesla Roadster owners.

By: Leota Ulerio

Leota Ulerio — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:09:10 +0000

Hi,

I wanted to say that I have been watching for a while and I would like to sign up for the feed. I’ll give it a try but I might need some help. This is a good find and I would hate to lose touch, and maybe never discover it again.

Anyway, thanks again and I look forward to reading again in the future!

By: Ben Branch

Ben Branch — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 02:05:31 +0000

@Roger – I agree about the pricing issue. The problem at the moment is the cost of the lithium-ion, a battery pack big enough for a car is going to cost $10-15,000 USD (this is why when you buy a Nissan Leaf they lease you the battery). With mass production and the continued 8-10% increase in battery capacity each year we should see these battery costs continue to decline. In the meantime cars like the Chevy Volt/Vauxhall Ampera are a good compromise.

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:22:08 +0000

@Roger Actually the writers at Gas 2.0 regularly cover the innovation stream in post-oil age driving. The RAV4 news just caught my interest because of my experience with it. I agree about pricing.

By: Roger L

Roger L — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:05:24 +0000

Hey Susan: Nice article but what percentage of the population can afford a 60K vehicle no matter the savings. Yes, you have to go there first to get the price down later, but real movement on the e vehicles will not take hold until some one mass produces a lower middle class available vehicle (under 20K) that can replace such vehicles in use today. Maybe you can do some research and publish some findings about how the automotive guys might get to this point. It would be interesting. Maybe the government is now focused on achieving this or helping this occur??

Roger

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:39:46 +0000

The surprise has been that’s it’s taken so long for Toyota to make these moves AT ALL. The fact that they’re going to Tesla AT ALL proves they don’t even have a strong electric motor R&D program under way.

Toyota have been caught off-guard by it’s arrogance/ignorance by the demand demonstrated for the Nissan Leaf which sold out it’s first years production in just 35 days.

An EV Corolla that goes like a Tesla Roadster??!! They’ll have a stampede on their hands, just like Nissan already have.