Earlier this year, Tesla, best known for making all electric sports cars like the Roadster, joined forces with Toyota Motors. Their plan was to produce several green cars and share technologies.

Well, it looks as though the fruits of their labor are already paying off - Tesla and Toyota have announced two prototypes that will be coming out within the next couple of years. These concepts were produced by Tesla for the Japanese auto maker.

"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," JB Straubel, Tesla's chief technology officer, told Bloomberg in an email.

Straubel added that Tesla signed an agreement to provide Toyota with two electric vehicle prototypes by the end of July.

"By having Tesla we think our omni-directional approach is becoming even more robust," said Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor Corporation president. "How they use batteries, how we use batteries, how the vehicles are used, there are many things we can share in these areas."

Neither Tesla nor Toyota has given any specifics on the models being used, or key technical specifications, such as target range - all we do know is the press will be updated during "each stage of development." This Tesla project is separate from the electric city car Toyota is developing for sale in 2012.

Stay up to date on all the electric car news from Toyota, or check out the upcoming Prius plug-in at Motorcars Toyota - 2950 Mayfield Rd., Cleveland Heights, OH 44118.


Source:  http://rumors.automobilemag.com/6664006/green/electric-development-tesla-developing-two-ev-prototypes-for-toyota/index.html