Toyota & Tesla

NUMMI was one of the casualties of the recent mess that hit the American car industry. It was a joint GM Toyota plant in Fremont California. It produced a lot of the joint GM/Toyota projects like the Pontiac Vibe, as well as some cars for just one of the companies, like the Tacoma pickup. At one point there were about 4,500 employees there, but it closed in April.

So yesterday’s announcement is good news. Toyota is putting $50 million into Tesla to produce the Model S, and they’re going to build them at the NUMMI plant.