Thursday, November 04, 2010

Panasonic Invests In Electric Carmaker Tesla

Tesla, the maker of $100,000 electric roadster sports car, added Panasonic, the largest rechargeable battery maker to it's list of investors. It already has Toyota Motor Corp. and Daimler AG among it's investors.
“a powerful endorsement of our technology, We believe our partnership with them will enable us to further improve our battery pack while reducing cost.”, ” said Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer speaking on the occasion.
Tesla just took over the former Toyota-GM joint venture factory in Fremont, California to produce it's Model S cars that sell for 57,400. Tesla also signed with Toyota to produce electric Rav 4, Toyota's smaller SUV
In January Tesla and Panasonic agreed to jointly develop next generation Lithium-Ion batteries for electric cars.
According to Business week, Panasonic bought 1.42 million Tesla shares at $21.15 bringing the investment near $30 million.
Yes those cars are nice and wish I could afford one.