• MSNBC, Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:34 AM

Toyota's decision to invest $50 million in Tesla, which plans to make electric cars at the Northern California NUMMI plant that the Japanese automaker and General Motors previously announced they were abandoning, is a smart way for the company to burnish its tarnished image, Allison Linn reports.

"This is like a public relations bonanza for them," says Robert E. Cole, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. "They certainly get some credibility," agrees Susan Helper, a professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University.

Beyond the benefits to be gained in perception, the deal with the quick-moving, entrepreneurial Tesla could infuse some fresh thinking into Toyota, which has recently been accused of being too stodgy, Edmunds.com senior analyst Michelle Krebs tells Linn.

"With Toyota and GM, you had the two giants of the planet operating together, learning from each other. They both knew how to do mass manufacturing," she says. "What's interesting about the Toyota/Tesla situation is, it's a big guy learning from a little guy and a little guy learning from a big guy."

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