Toyota cuts last tie with Tesla, launching its own electric car project

Tesla and Toyota used to have close ties.
In 2010, Toyota invested US$50 million (NZ$69.60m) in Tesla and they brokered a heavily discounted sale of the Nummi factory, now Tesla’s Fremont factory.

Tesla also used to supply the electric powertrain of the Toyota RAV4 EV up until 2014.

At that point, Toyota sold most of its Tesla shares for a healthy profit and has now confirmed that it sold all its remaining shares before the end of last year, reports Electrek.

Toyota spokesman Ryo Sakai confirmed the news, according to Reuters. “Our development partnership with Tesla ended a while ago, and since there has not been any new developments on that front, we decided it was time to sell the remaining stake.”

Its remaining shares were sold last year, just as Toyota announced its own all-electric car project. Due to its heavy investments in hydrogen fuel cells, Toyota fell behind almost every other automaker when it came to all-electric vehicle development.

That strategy changed in November 2016, when the Japanese automaker announced Akio Toyoda, the company’s chief executive officer and grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda, is now president of a new EV business planning department overseeing the launch of an all-electric vehicle by 2020.