Panasonic: tripling battery capacity to 200 GWh by FY2030
Panasonic Corp. plans to launch the latest generation of higher-capacity EV batteries as early as this year, said Shoichiro Watanabe, the company's chief technology officer in charge of its EV battery business.
Panasonic's plant in the U.S. state of Nevada will start producing an improved version of the 2170 battery sometime in 2024 or 2025, Shoichiro Watanabe said in an interview.
He said the company could meet its commitment to triple production capacity by fiscal 2030 and wouldn't need to rely exclusively on new factories or big investments to achieve that goal. Watanabe said Panasonic has been working to increase the energy density of the 2170 battery, adding that it will help reduce the overall cost of electric vehicles.
Panasonic has its sights set on North America, where it plans to improve and expand production as part of its goal to one day provide 200 gigawatt-hours of energy for EV batteries. Panasonic is also developing another thicker and larger battery called the 4680 cell.
Watanabe said increasing capacity by 10 percent by fiscal 2025 won't necessarily require adding new production lines or further investment. The timing of production of next-generation EV batteries at the Nevada plant, which operates jointly with Tesla, will be decided "not unilaterally, but jointly," he said.
Panasonic has invested heavily in the development of batteries for electric cars to ensure it doesn't fall behind in the global effort to phase out fossil fuels in favor of cleaner, carbon-neutral energy sources.
The company is currently building a battery plant in the US state of Kansas, its second in North America, and will announce a site for a third battery plant by the end of the fiscal year ending in March this year. The company has pledged to cap its battery capacity at 200 gigawatt-hours by fiscal 2030, up from the current 50 gigawatt-hours.
While Watanabe declined to comment on the future location of the upcoming plant, he said that operating the new plant "will require thousands of employees."
