Panasonic and Toyota start production of batteries for EVs in April april

Panasonic and Toyota will start producing batteries for electric cars from April this year. It was already known that the two Japanese manufacturers had set up a joint venture for this.

Toyota reports that the new joint company will be called Prime Planet Energy & Solutions. Toyota will own 51 percent of the shares in that company, and Panasonic will take a 49 percent stake. The new company will employ approximately 5,100 employees. Their activities will include the development, manufacture and sale of prismatic lithium-ion batteries, solid state batteries and ‘next generation batteries’. Prime Planet Energy & Solutions will not only supply batteries to Toyota, but to a variety of automotive customers.

Prismatic cells are frequently used in, for example, smartphones and laptops. They are flat cells with a metal or aluminum shell that can efficiently fill the given space in a device. Cylindrical cells such as those of the type 18650 are used by Tesla for the Model S and X, among others, mainly because they are cheap to produce. The Model 3 uses type 21700 lithium-ion cells, with the length increased from 65 to 70mm and the diameter of the cell increased from 18 to 21mm. Panasonic’s battery plant in Nevada makes only these battery cells. Toyota mainly uses prismatic cells for its hybrid cars, although the company is said to have switched to Panasonic cylindrical batteries for new plug-in hybrid cars in China.