Toyota announce joint venture with panasonic in battery production
It looks like joint ventures are the talk of the motoring town this month (we’re looking at you, Ford and Volkswagen) as Toyota and Panasonic confirm their joint venture towards battery production for electric vehicles.
The collaboration is expected to commence at the start of 2021 and will see a transfer of around 3500 employees between the behemoth companies. Panasonic is even relocating its manufacturing facilities in Japan and China.
Toyota and Panasonic have a rich history together, with the duo collaborating since 1953. Panasonic already supplies battery cells exclusively to Tesla, but their batteries have also found their way into other cars, including some of Toyota’s EV’s and hybrids. Interestingly, the new joint venture is expected to produce batteries that are intended to be sold to various automotive manufacturers and are not exclusively for Toyota.
Details on the amount of capital invested by Toyota and Panasonic toward the venture has remained confidential, however Toyota has confirmed that they retain 51% of the venture which is based on the fundamental of exploring ways to keep a stable supply of batteries amid fears of shortages. This is also why the joint venture is focused on bettering the EV market as a whole, rather than limiting the advantages to Toyota’s products.
“Together with Panasonic, we want to hone our competitiveness in batteries, one of the core technologies of electrified vehicles,” Toyota Executive Vice-President Shigeki Terashi said. “By contributing to the popularisation of Toyota’s and other auto makers’ electrified vehicles, we want to help find solutions to issues such as global warming and environment and energy-related challenges.”
“Panasonic is a leading company in the area of automotive batteries. I think it was fate for us to come together to work for this collaboration. We would like to offer opportunities to work together with other companies with the collaboration for the realisation of automotive prismatic batteries,” said Toyota boss Akio Toyoda.
