Panasonic sends 4680 battery samples to Tesla to prepare for mass production.
Panasonic said it has shipped samples of 4680 battery cells to the automaker Tesla ahead of mass production. Panasonic detailed plans for its production schedule on the first day of the company’s annual investor event.
Pilot line
“A pilot line first created in Japan can start mass prototype production in May,” Kazuo Tadanobu, CEO of Panasonic’s energy business, said at the event.
Panasonic sends 4680 battery samples to Tesla to prepare for mass production
Panasonic believes mass production of the 4680 battery cells will begin in March 2023, when the company’s fiscal year begins. Panasonic’s Wakayama plant will initially be responsible for battery production. Production will then move to North America.
Tadanobu has not committed to producing 4680 lithium batteries in the U.S. in the past, but now he says the company will move production to North America, where it may build another factory.
Reuters, which originally reported that Panasonic had shipped samples of 4680 lithium batteries to Tesla, said the company was visiting factories in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Panasonic only has Tesla as a customer of the new lithium battery.
Latest battery technology
Tesla’s 4680 lithium battery is Tesla’s latest in electric vehicle technology, as it offers far more power, energy density and range than previous batteries.
The 4680 lithium battery solution was unveiled at the company’s Battery Day held in late 2020 by CEO Elon Musk and other executives.
Tesla has been producing the batteries in limited quantities at a factory near the Fremont factory in Northern California. Tesla produced its millionth 4680 battery in January.
However, industry researcher Benchmark Mineral Intelligence estimates that one million 4680 cells is enough to produce about 1,200 Tesla Model Ys.
Tesla has been installing 4680 battery packs in some Model Ys produced at the company’s new factory in Austin, Texas
