Panasonic Invests $30 Million in Tesla

Browsing around related links in the Wired site, there was one talking about the Toyota/Tesla pairing and the work on the electric version of the RAV4, and I saw this paragraph:

"The plug-in Prius rolls into North American showrooms in the “May/June 2012 time frame” and the goal is to sell 20,000 of them, Toyota said in another tweet. That’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things — the company sold 356,824 Camrys last year — but it’s twice the number of Chevrolet Volts that GM will build next year."
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I don't think I'd seen that number before, but maybe I wasn't paying attention. Sorry about the distraction from Tesla proper.

 

Well, that is good. I've been pretty impressed with the quality of the panasonic cells used in the Prius, especially the Gen-2/3 models. So they obviously make good batteries.

 

Am I the only one that sees the irony in this story (direct AP link)?
CTCentral - News from the Associated Press



This is Panasonic ... remember? Once upon a time, the maker of THE premier nickel EV battery used in the RAV4-EV, the S10-EV (VERY limited) as well as the memorable EV-1. GM left Panasonic high & dry with this formula. Now Panasonic is buying a piece of Tesla. Everyone but GM seems to be getting in on the band wagon. It's as though what ever others are doing, GM is not. Oh the irony.

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I remember RAV4EV uses following 95Ah NiHM batteries (10 cells X 24 modules) from PEVE.
Completed Electric Pickup Truck Two - EPT2

Ken@Japan

 

This is what I find interesting:

"Tesla .... plans to produce its next-generation electric sedan, the Model S, in partnership with Toyota, set to start in 2012."

I hadn't realised Toyota were also in on the Model S (see below) ??

 

Toyota jumped on the bandwagon practically immediately.

 

Bad GM, but Panasonic was sued by Chevron, the company that bought the Nimh battery business. That business would have likely raised the price JCI bought delco for, and JCI might have licensed the batteries to panasonic or manufactured them for toyota. JCI has also aquired saft and JCI-saft lithium batteries are in the bmw and mercedes hv, and will be in fords bev transit connect. The Panasonic only big competitor in Nimh was sanyo, which panasonic recently acquired. The panasonic batteries in the tesla and likely in the rav4 are consumer not auto cells. JCI only makes auto cells. LG makes consumer and auto cells.

We don't really know the level of involvement. As part of the investment in tesla, toyota got tesla to take over part of NUMMI and will likely provide manufacturing support. I doubt toyota will help with any of the design, unless it is modifying the design for manufacturing, which toyota excels at.

 

I have heard tesla is going to have a better price point than prius. What do you think?

 

Link/source?

 

Certainly not with the model S. It's price is around 50k last I heard.
Tesla's plan is to have an EV economy sedan out roughly about 2016. It is far too early to say what the price point it will have.