Featured Unconfirmed Rumor of New Toyota & Tesla Partnership

The engineering culture clash is unlikely to lead to anything I would have any interest. Think “Young Dr. Frankenstein.”

I don’t see anything Tesla/Musk would find in Toyota worth a second look.

Bob Wilson

 

hard to believe with toyotas electric experience that they don't have everything they need, but anything is possible i suppose.

 

The link is Korean.
Viewed thru Google Translate:

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Happy April 1st.

 

Toyota already built Tesla powered rav4’s

 

While that sounds great, I've heard that just like old cell phones, there are features that can't be pushed to the older models due to hardware restraints and (evidently) other issues. FSD was one that required hardware upgrades, often at an extra price.

Personally, I never want to have a car that receives beta grade OTA updates of the software that controls the car. I'm surprised that the government allows it. I don't want the functionality of the car to change frequently. It's bad enough that you have to get reoriented when you switch from one car to the next. It's worse when you have to figure out what happened to the windshield wiper switch while driving at 70 MPH on the freeway during a sudden squall.

 

If we are talking about Self Driving software Toyota already has multiple partners-maybe no need for more

Toyota, Autonomous Vehicle Startup Aurora Enter Self-Driving Cars Partnership - Bloomberg

Toyota does have a history of Automotive partnership- General Motors, Subaru, Mazda, Ford, Hino Motors, Daewoo, along with others. One more would not be unanticipated or surprising.

Usually the deciding factor is if there is a good business case for the partnership and if Toyota will receive a perceived benefit from the alliance.

Tesla is an interesting and innovative electric car manufacture- but just a bit player in total car volume sales worldwide.
Toyota is currently the leader in world car volume sales and the most successful automobile maker worldwide.
It would be interesting to see if they really partner what each would hope to gain.

 

my translation: WILL TESLA AND TOYOTA MAKE HALF-BAKED ELECTRIC CARS?

 

Strangely enough, I saw one of these Rav4 Electric models yesterday. It had a license plate from around 2013, so it was one of the Toy-Tesla models.

Even stranger, I saw one of the original Rav4 electrics last week. That was a model from the 1997 - 2003 era. What are the odds of that?

We have a lot of Rav4 Hybrids here, so all I need to spot now is a Rav4 Prime this month and I'll have a hat trick!

 

The owner has the option of not installing the software. Just the bug fixes are better than any new bugs.

Bob Wilson

 

Sorry Bob, but that sentence does not parse. Are you saying that the existing bugs are so bad that any new bugs would have to be better? Or that it's worth it to get new bugs in order to get the features to work right? Can you reword it so that I can understand your point better?

Thanks

 

There are software bugs that in severe cases makes parts unusable. For example AutoPilot 2019 was scary on a two lane, right curve. But that is fixed.

There are newer user interfaces that are unreliable but not a safety risk. For example, trying to check the trip meters is ambiguous so it can cause the rendered vehicle image to rotate adding no value to the display. BUT, it is not a safety issue.

Bob Wilson

 

Not sure what Bob was meaning, but since I took delivery of my Model 3 about 2.5 years ago I have gotten the following new features via OTA updates:
- dashcam (just install a USB flash drive to get this after the update)
- sentry mode (same USB flash drive and the various cameras record when people approach the car and it warns them)
- dog mode (allows keeping inside cool in case you want to leave your pet in a car)
- various game and ability to watch Netflix; for example while you are waiting for someone or charging)
- faster Supercharging. Max rate went from 120 kw to 250 kw via software
- battery pre-conditioning (when you are on your way to a Supercharger the battery temp is heated or cooled so it can accept faster charging
- Supercharger info available on touch screen updated to show more info about charger availability, number of units, etc.
- added an optional security PIN for unlocking the glove box (i.e. to prevent valet access)
- numerous media player updates

This is all the important ones I can think of...there are a lot more.
Oh yeah, they've been constantly improving the self driving features.

Mike

 

Walking our neighborhood our dog is pretty good at finding them


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any new rumours?