What did The General need most of all in the late 1980s? You got it, another marque! All those Suzukis and Toyotas being built in California and Ontario needed friendly Detroit-style badging, not to mention those Japan-built Isuzus.

A service bulletin outlining yet another fix for Toyota's unintended acceleration problems (this time, the Pontiac Vibe) shows just how difficult re-engineering a car part is. Steps involving hacksaws and bubble wrap are both comical and a little unnerving.

Tesla Motors released a revised filing for its IPO today with two key nuggets of information: Tesla is buying the plant for $42 million and it doesn't have a formal deal with Toyota to build a new electric vehicle yet.

Tesla will announce a deal with Toyota to build electric cars at a press conference later this afternoon. Although it's not yet clear what the specifics of the deal will entail, we can speculate all sorts of fun things. UPDATE

The once-bustling GM-Toyota New United Motors plant, located at the northeastern edge of the area known as Silicon Valley and about 25 miles down the freeway from Chez Murilee, shut down on Friday.

This weekend's episode of This American Life focused on NUMMI, the GM/Toyota joint venture production facility closing this week after 26 years. It's a great primer for the Carpocalypse. [ThisAmericanLife] (Thanks to everyone for the tips!)

Japan's Asahi Shimbun reports Toyota will, as expected, end production at California's NUMMI, a ground-breaking joint venture-with-GM assembly plant in March, moving Corolla production to Canadian and Japanese plants. Gov. Schwarzenegger claims they'll be back. We doubt it. [via AutoNews]

Toyota will be sitting down with GM to discuss a withdrawal from the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporation (NUMMI) facility joint venture. It seems overcapacity is plaguing even the number-one-super-best-automaker-in-the-land-of... Fremont, California. [WSJ]