auto car destop

Thousands of unemployed autoworkers in Northern California are hoping for a future building electric cars. Their hopes center around a new deal between the giant carmaker Toyota and Tesla Motors, an electric car company that's giving new life to a Toyota plant that closed last month.

NUMMI Electric Cars

For 25 years, Toyota ran a unique joint venture with General Motors called New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., also known as NUMMI. That partnership ended when GM went bankrupt. And in April, Toyota shuttered the plant in Fremont, Calif., leaving about 4,700 workers jobless and looking for a miracle.

The agreement between Toyota and Tesla was announced by Toyota's CEO Akio Toyoda, who promised to invest $50 million in Tesla. The fledgling electric carmaker will, in turn, buy the old NUMMI plant, a facility where Toyoda himself had once worked.