Toyota teams up with Tesla to make electric cars

The current economic climate is very bad and all car manufacturing in the USA has declined in the last 2 years. But the longer term trend is that foreign companies are manufacturing more and more here while the USA companies fail to. This year it is likely the “big three” will manufacture fewer than 50% of the cars manufactured in the USA (the “big three” have more production in Canada and Mexico than the “foreign” companies do).

Silicon Valley has emerged as the hub for the nascent electric vehicle movement. Tesla Motors (TSLA), glowing in the spotlight of the first initial public offering of a U.S. automaker in over 50 years, is the star at the moment. The Palo Alto-based maker of the sporty, $109,000 Roadster has the strong supporting case that it sorely needs to make this IPO venture a success.

Are electric cars running out of juice again? Recent moves by Japan’s two largest automakers suggest that the electric car, after more than 100 years of development and several brief revivals, still is not ready for prime time – and may never be. In the meantime, the attention of automotive executives in Asia, Europe and North America is beginning to swing toward an unusual but promising new alternate power source: hydrogen.

ByRandy Carlson: Tesla (TSLA) had a rough 3rd quarter. But those troubles seem to be behind and it appears that not only did Mr. Musk and his team at Tesla design a spectacularly good car, they have figured out how to make them.

Samsung Electronics announced it is buying mSpot to take advantage of the Silicon Valley company's prowess at streaming music and films to smartphones or tablet computers.The South Korean consumer electronics powerhouse did not reveal what it is paying to acquire mSpot, which is based in the Northern California city of Palo Alto."MSpot shares our vision to bring a best-in-class cloud and streaming entertainment experience to consumers and they've backed it up with great technical solutions," said Samsung media solution center senior vice president TJ Kang.

Joel West submits: Thursday night, Palo Alto-based Tesla Motors announced that its long-promised Model S electric sedan would be built at the closed NUMMI plant in Fremont. The announcement came with a $50 million investment from Toyota (TM).

New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., a California factory run by both General Motors and Toyota, will close next week. Over the years, the line produced 8 million high-quality cars and trucks. But workers say the line also had its fair share of controversial practices.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us