Tesla Ready to Ship Prototypes to Toyota

Things seem to be moving very fast for both American electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and the Japanese from Toyota, following the partnership announcement they've made in May. Whereas earlier this week Toyota acknowledged it is already working with Tesla on a prototype vehicle, it would appear things are much more advanced than that.

According to Autonews, Tesla is getting ready to deliver two rechargeable prototype electric cars to Toyota as early as this month. And that's not just hearsay, but, according to JB Straubel, Tesla's chief technology officer, the result of an agreement signed by the two for the delivery of the prototypes in July.

“Since our announcement in May, Toyota and Tesla engineering teams have made a lot of progress in a short amount of time, and it is exciting to start seeing some initial results,” Straubel said in an e-mail cited by Autonews.

Straubel added the prototypes are existing Toyota vehicles equipped with Tesla battery packs and motors. Aside from that, there are no details known about the two vehicles.

“By having Tesla we think our omni-directional approach is becoming even more robust,” Toyota's CEO, Akio Toyoda added. “How they use batteries, how we use batteries, how the vehicles are used, there are many things we can share in these areas.”

Last week, Toyota announced it is working on a prototype based on Tesla tech on its own as well. The car is a precursor of a battery-powered small car planned to be released by Toyota in 2012. The details of the project will be released, according to Toyoda, “at each stage of development.”