Tesla and Toyota to develop RAV4 EV, hope to launch in 2012

Toyota and Tesla have officially announced that the electric prototypes being developed by the California startup are based on the RAV4 crossover, and the two companies hope to have a production version ready by 2012. When we sat down with Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda last week, he revealed that an initial prototype was being built with a Tesla electric powertrain. Since then, Tesla CTO JB Straubel revealed that his engineering team was preparing two vehicles based on an existing Toyota platform for delivery by the end of July.

If the project comes to fruition, it will be great news for fans of the original RAV4 EV which debuted in the late 1990s. Several hundred of those vehicles are still on the road today and regularly turn up for sale on eBay Motors at premium prices.

The new RAV4s will use Tesla's liquid cooled lithium ion battery configuration that contains thousands of commodity laptop cells. The first prototype is already running and a larger fleet will be prepared this year for durability testing by Toyota.

Source;
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/16/tesla-and-toyota-to-develop-rav4-ev-hope-to-launch-in-2012/

Report: Honda buys $13.8 million worth of plug-in credits from Tesla

One of the advantages of being an automaker that produces nothing but plug-in vehicles is earning zero-emissions credits. It's long been thought that those credits could at some point become a valuable commodity. Back in 2007, when Phoenix Motorcars was still around, a big chunk of their business plan revolved around revenue from those credits. Phoenix went bust before they were ever able to deliver any vehicles, but Tesla Motors has picked up that idea.

Buried in an updated S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week, Tesla revealed that it has sold $13.8 million worth of zero emissions vehicle credits, representing 368 cars, to Honda over the last two years. Honda and Tesla also have an agreement to exchange credits for another 287 vehicles. Unfortunately for Tesla, this market for its credits will soon largely dry up as Roadster sales have slowed to a trickle and the Model S won't come to the streets for at least two more years. For Honda, there will be plenty of other sources for these credits – including Nissan, General Motors, Ford and others – beginning later this year.

Source;
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/06/06/report-honda-buys-13-8-million-worth-of-plug-in-credits-from/