Panasonic And Mazda Rye EV Battery Supply Partnership

(CTN News) – In a joint announcement on Wednesday, Mazda Motor Corporation and Panasonic Holdings’ energy unit announced they would start talks to establish a battery partnership to support electric vehicles, according to the companies.

It is likely that such an effort on lithium-ion batteries will carry Mazda a step closer to ramping up production of EVs, as part of a 1.5-trillion-yen ($10.6-billion) spending plan it unveiled in November in an effort to drive electrification of vehicles in the future.

A statement was issued by the companies stating that, as part of the partnership, Panasonic Energy will provide Mazda with automotive cylindrical lithium-ion batteries manufactured in Japan as well as in North America.

These batteries will be used to power Mazda electric Panasonic vehicles expected to be introduced in the second half of this decade.

The spokesperson for Mazda Panasonic declined to specify in the press release the type of battery cells the Hiroshima-based automaker planned to use as part of its electric vehicles, adding that the automaker would hold discussions with a view to securing a supply from 2025-2027 onwards or later.

According to Mazda, those years represent phase two of a three-phase plan, with the company announcing in November that it would unveil battery-electric vehicles in the latter half of that period following the introduction of hybrid models.

The two companies stated that during their discussions, they would be concentrating on the development of a long-term partnership between the two companies.

Mazda spokesperson explained that in 2012 the company was using 1865 Panasonic batteries to power its Demio EV, a subcompact vehicle, in an attempt to gain knowledge about the benefits of electrification as part of an effort to lease 100 of the vehicles in the future.

There is a growing number of Japanese automakers preparing to compete for a bigger share of the global EV market in the coming years.

It was announced last week that the world’s largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corp., which owns a 5 percent stake in Mazda, has unveiled a sweeping plan to Panasonic adopt solid-state batteries and other technologies to improve the driving range of electric vehicles and decrease their prices in the future.

Earlier this week, Japan announced that it would raise its support for domestic battery production to up to $2.2 billion, as part of its efforts to strengthen the economic supply chain security for Toyota and other manufacturers.

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