Toyota And Panasonic Are Going To Co-Manufacture Electric Vehicles Batteries

Tokyo’s Motor Corp Toyota and Panasonic Corp will start a joint project the following year to manufacture electric vehicle batteries, or EV in short, further expanding the two giant automaker and batteries maker influence upon the EV market.

Toyota will hold 51% of the joint venture while the rest will belong to Panasonic. As the two corporations confirmed during a statement on the previous Tuesday.

The foundation of the shared project was their former partnership in the lithium-ion batteries field, which was made by Panasonic and Toyota back in 2017. The shared project’s aim is to make Japan’s companies a bigger influencer in the EVs battery manufacturing industry, which will be necessary for the further manufacture of economical EVs.

Toyota and Panasonic will pour their parts of engineers and available battery-related tools to the shared projects. Panasonic will take advantage of its production capabilities in China and Japan for its thin, rectangular-shaped prismatic batteries.

As many as 3,500 employees will be transferred by the pair. Batteries that are manufactured by the shared project will only be available for sale with automakers. However, the extent of this joint project has not yet been decided, as stated by the two corporations.

Despite Panasonic being one of the largest EV battery vendors around the world, the corporation is currently facing the rise of other competitors from South Korea – Samsung SDI Corp and LG Chem, and China’s CATL.

Panasonic is now the one and only batter suppliers for the Tesla Inc, however, reports have indicated that Tesla has been discussing with other firms and one of which is the China-based Tianjin Lishen. The discussion is mainly about supplying batteries for Tesla’s Shanghai-based factory.

A joint project has already been made between Panasonic and Toyota before, which is known as Prime Earth EV Energy. The project focused on manufacturing batteries for electric and gasoline hybrid vehicles.

The joint project also indicates Toyota's attempt in expanding its business to developing and producing EV batteries, while many competitors in this field have given up due to its heavy costs.