Tesla and Toyota Team Up on Elecric RAV4

You have probably heard of Tesla Motors, but odds are you don't own their $100,000 high-performance all-electric sports car. It has a niche market. Tesla has been criticized, in fact, for creating an electric car that's basically a novelty for the rich. But back in May, we heard promising news: Tesla was striking up a partnership with Toyota, maker of more practical and affordable cars.

Now we know what they have planned. Today, the two companies announced that they will team up to update the Toyota RAV4 EV. The new version, expected to hit the market in 2012, will have a Toyota body and a Tesla electric powertrain. If the RAV4 collaboration goes well, we're likely to see more joint models. Toyesla? Tesota?

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Image: Blue RAV4, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from mediaguru's photostream