#NUMMI

The end goal for most venture-capital financed start-ups is to issue an IPO and help get some money into the hands of those investors brave enough to give the company money at the early stages. Tesla Motors, perhaps the first Silicon Valley car company(and headed by Elon Musk, a former dot-com executive), is about to do just that, after filing papers with the Security and Exchange Commission, detailing terms of their IPO.

It appears as though last month’s much-touted tie-up between Toyota and American electric car maker Tesla Motors was more of a publicity stunt than the start of a brave new electric world. In a recently filed IPO statement to the SEC, Tesla says that while there are a lot of good intentions to work together on future electric vehicles and bring the Tesla Model S to market, “we have not entered into any agreements with Toyota for any such arrangement, including any purchase orders, and we may never do so.”

At 38 years old, Elon Musk has already lived a life filled with more adventures and pitfalls than most of us can fathom. The founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX was also a one time owner of a McLaren F1, the holy grail of car collecting, and served as the inspiration for Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, in the latest films inspired by the Marvel Comic franchise.

After acquiring the former NUMMI plant jointly owned by General Motors and Toyota, Tesla Motors was immediately targeted by the UAW for a guilt-trip campaign by the United Auto Workers to re-hire the 4,700 workers set to lose their jobs as the plant closed.

The United Auto Workers is busy inserting itself into the Toyota/ Tesla joint venture barely 24 hours after it was even announced. The two companies announced that they would be collaborating on electric vehicles, and Tesla would be taking over the revolutionary (at the time) NUMMI plant in Fremont, California, to build their new Model S sedan.

Japanese giant Toyota Motor Corp and American electric car start-up Tesla Motors have announced a partnership that will see both automakers work towards future electric cars. In the short term, however, the deal has a more immediate result, namely that Toyota is spending $50 million to buy a significant stake in Tesla, which will then use that money to purchase a part of the NUMMI factory in Fremont, California.

Until recently NUMMI has been used by Toyota to build both the Corolla and Tacoma. Tesla will use it to build the company’s new flagship Model S electric luxury sedan. Company CEO Elon Musk said he expects to build roughly 20,000 models a year at first (around 2012), bringing 1,000 jobs back to the NUMMI plant. If the plan ever reaches max capacity of half a million models it could employ as many as 10,000.

In addition to the physical assets, Toyota will also teach Tesla about its production system, a “widely copied system that lead to dramatic quality improvements and unprecedented manufacturing flexibility and worker satisfaction.”

Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda hopes the partnership will also benefit his company by learning from the small and agile Tesla. “Through this partnership, by working together with a venture business such as Tesla, Toyota would like to learn from the challenging spirit, quick decision-making, and flexibility that Tesla has,” said Toyoda. “Decades ago, Toyota was also born as a venture business. By partnering with Tesla, my hope is that all Toyota employees will recall that ‘venture business spirit,’ and take on the challenges of the future.”

With access to Toyota’s production methods and a proper facility to build the cars, Tesla intends to drive down the cost of electric cars through economies of scale. The company’s first car, the Tesla Roadster, costs roughly $100,000 while the new Model S is expected to retail for $49,900 after a federal tax credit.

[Source: Toyota and Autoblog]

Official release after the jump:

Toyota has confirmed that, for the first time, it will close one of its U.S. plants. The facility is the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Freemont, California.

Toyota may share a version of its Prius hybrid with General Motors according to a recent report by Bloomberg. Sources say Toyota President Akio Toyoda and GM CEO Fritz Henderson will meet in August in Michigan to discuss the possibility of selling a version GM-badged Prius – or possibly using Toyota hybrid technology to build a different hybrid vehicle.

Contrary to recent reports that the Vibe would be the sole Pontiac model to continue on into 2010, General Motors has now decided to end production of the utilitarian vehicle early. Production of the Vibe at the GM/Toyota joint-venture New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated (NUMMI) facility will end this August.

In stark contrast to official statements by General Motors reps (and to a story we ran yesterday) the struggling U.S. automaker does indeed want out of the joint project with Toyota that saw the creation of the Vibe/Matrix.

With news today that the Pontiac brand will in fact be eliminated, General Motors is eager to get working with Toyota to build a new shared platform to replace the Vibe.