Toyota Severs Ties With Tesla, Launches Their Own Electric Car Division – Futurism

In Brief Japanese car giant Toyota has officially divested from Tesla as of the end of last year. The company has begun its own electric car division and may also be helping to bring a flying car into reality.

Toyota officially ended its relationship with Elon Musks Tesla by selling off its remaining shares of the company by the end of last year. The Japanese automaking company began with a $50 million investment for a three percent stake in the company.

In a statement, Toyota spokesman Ryo Sakai said, via 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. Interestingly, late last year, Toyota formed an electric car division of its own. So, it looks like Japans biggest automobile company is looking to compete for Teslas market share.

News from the BBC points to Toyota investing in Cartivatorto develop a flying car. The startuphas been crowdfunding their vehicle, the Skydrive, which has projected speeds of about 100 km/h (62 mph) and the ability to fly 10 meters (33 feet) off the ground.

Credit: Cartivation

This move directly opposes previous statements made by Elon Musk regarding flying cars. In an interview with Bloombergearlier this year he said, Obviously, I like flying things. But its difficult to imagine the flying car becoming a scalable solution.

Electric cars have quickly become the clear front runner in the future of personal transportation. Still, it is exciting to see that flying cars may not altogether be DOA.

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Toyota Severs Ties With Tesla, Launches Their Own Electric Car Division - Futurism