According to The New York Times, “Late last month, the companies — to much fanfare in California — went public with plans to build an auto plant in Fremont, Calif., with Toyota committing its expertise to help San Carlos-based Tesla with electric drive chain technology and building its Model S electric sedan.”

“We intend to use this facility for the production of our planned Model S and future vehicles,” explained Tesla officials, adding that they are still “in an early stage of planning for this facility.”

Tesla and Toyota had to go public with some of the plan’s details in order to submit offerings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Though neither the SEC nor Tesla will post an exact date of when shared production will begin.

Toyota will lend parts and support (which probably means money) to the production of Tesla’s new plug-in electric car, the Model S, which they hope to sell for the 2012 fiscal year.

Toyota’s FT-EV II (the sequel) has already made a splash (or trickle) on the automotive world – but Steampunk fans all over will love the joystick-type dash featured in recent photos. And by drooling steampunk lovers we mean us! The latest concept photos of the FT-EV II dash features a “gilded mechanical joystick contraption” and a pop-up digital speedometer. Our hearts skip a beat – but don’t expect this in the final production model.

via engadget.com