Panasonic To Build 4680 Battery Factory In Kansas To Supply Tesla's Needs

JAKARTA - Panasonic Holdings Corp. will invest several billion dollars in a plant in Kansas to supply new high-capacity batteries for Tesla electric vehicles. The contract was reported by Nikkei on Wednesday, July 13.

The report comes after Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said he was having difficulty increasing production of the so-called 4680 battery, which is used in the Model Y electric car made at its Texas plant. He said Tesla's new car factories in Texas and Berlin were a moneybox that was "losing billions of dollars" due to low production volumes.

Panasonic and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. Kansas government officials were also not immediately available for comment.

Last month, Reuters reported Japanese conglomerate Panasonic was looking at potential plant sites in Kansas and Oklahoma to supply batteries to the US electric car maker's Texas plant.

"The Oklahoma Department of Commerce and partners "continue to work with Project Ocean and are optimistic for their additional opportunities in the future," said Brent Kisling, executive director at the department, in a statement to Reuters, referring to the Panasonic battery plant project.

Panasonic is targeting EV battery production capacity to triple or quadruple by fiscal year 2028 from current levels of around 50 gigawatt-hours per year, according to the Nikkei report. Panasonic also already has a factory in Nevada that supplies smaller batteries to Tesla.

Panasonic, which has been Tesla's battery supplier for more than a decade, also said it had shipped samples of the more powerful 4680 format battery to the electric car maker.

The new batteries are about five times larger than those currently supplied by Panasonic, meaning the US electric car maker could lower production costs and increase vehicle mileage.