Toyota invests $50M in Tesla, will jointly reopen NUMMI plant | Hacker News Reader

Toyota invests $50M in Tesla, will jointly reopen NUMMI plant

mercurynews.com

102 pointsfrankus20 comments

OBTAL: "This American Life" produced an interesting (even to a non-car-guy) history of the plant about two months back:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_fu...

Man, the first time I clicked on that link, I closed the tab without giving it a second look, as a sort of reflex, because the page title started with "403:". Had to come back and click again.

This American Life is one of my favorite things. It's simply wonderful.

Seconded. I loved that episode (though it made me mad at GM and their unions...)

Yes, the union doesn't come off very well except for one interesting bit: the same workers and union went from crap to good when management changed.

Yeah, the NUMMI workers really improved. But that was only after they were fired and could only come back to work if they accepted the change.

In all other GM plants, both the unions and management blocked the changes for something like 15-20 years.

The part I found most interesting is the focus GM had on what you could see. NUMMI worked because they could get the type of parts they needed etc but they needed to infect the rest of the organization with the idea before GM could really benefit.

Seems to me that Toyota recognizes that government is among their biggest threats. To avoid this, it tries to make itself an insider by hiring citizens. This makes it hard for government to hurt Toyota without hurting its own citizens.

This is great news both for the future of Tesla and also the workers at the NUMMI plant!

I have been skeptical of the whole electric car movement because of 6 reasons. 1) Running the AC heat or cooling really sucks that longevity. 2) Car wrecks could become more horrendous because of the acid. 3) Battery pack replacements are extremely costly. 4) Need more tow trucks fitted with charging kits to help out. 5) The entire economics of the thing just isn't worked out. 6) Are these cars actually green, or would they, in whole, including their destruction, cause more harm to the environment then help?

However, I believe in Elon Musk, an incredible guy, have a desire at least to see this company succeed, and Tesla's goals are noble goals. So, I'm very happy that Toyota saw the benefit and decided to invest. This means that Tesla will succeed for sure.

Point 2 isn't really that big of a deal, unless you're using old flooded-cell lead-acid batteries. Newer lead-acid batteries have the electrolyte absorbed in fiberglass mats, so it won't spill or splash, even in a collision. An lithium-ion electrolyte is about as harmful in terms of skin and eye contact as petroleum fuels, except that it won't catch fire nearly as readily.

All in all liquid fuels are much more hazardous than batteries. In an alternate reality where electric cars were the norm, I doubt you could get a liquid-fueled car past the safety regulators.

Point 6 is a valid question. An electric car is still a car, and comes with all the negative externalities of a car, with the exception of local air pollution and petroleum dependence. Greenhouse-gas-wise, they are somewhere between "about the same" and "much much better" than internal combustion powered cars, depending on your assumptions.

re. 2), while car don't blow up as easily in real life as they do in the movies, when they do catch fire it makes for quite a bang. I'd rather be next to a wrecked electric vehicle than a gasoline-powered on.

re. 6) manufacturing externalities for any vehicle are significant, but burning fossil fuels in a power station (to generate electricity to charge batteries) is vastly more efficient and cleaner than doing so in a vehicle engine. Thus, I think the overall level of pollution is likely to be lower.

It's good to see this partnership; everyone likes what Tesla are about and their vision that green doesn't have to mean weak performance. But the high cost of their early offerings made a lot of people skeptical about the realistic future of electric cars. However, now that so many companies are committing to an all-electric paradigm (Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt) there's enough competition to really drive innovation and offer customers a good value proposition.

Really informative answers, guys. Thanks!

still on the homepage:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366138

twice:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366106

I wonder what makes Toyota feel that car manufacturing in the U.S. is now attractive again?

Even though the technology is new and different, you would still think that the economics of mass production remain the same.

Toyota has a lot of manufacturing the US; the NUMMI venture with GM was not the only toe-in-the-water. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_manufacturing_fa...

And of course Toyota wants some GOOD American press for once.

I agree and $50M isn't that much to Toyota. Also, there may have been lease or shutdown and cleanup costs of the NUMMI site that probably would have exceeded $50M if no one took it over.

There are still various protective taxes in place with respect to importing automobiles from abroad (not to mention shipping costs). It could be that in this case Toyota expects that producing cars locally in America will reduce in lower costs than producing them abroad for this reason.

I wonder how the love triangle between Tesla, Daimler and Toyota will play out. Does anyone know if Toyota and Daimler have ever collaborated before?

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