Panasonic plans to deploy Tesla 4680 battery cell production later this year

Panasonic confirmed that it plans to set up Tesla 4680 battery cell production at GIgafactory Nevada later this year.

They expect higher revenue from the Tesla partnership.

Tesla’s call for higher battery production

When Tesla unveiled its plan to produce its own new tabless battery cell in a bigger format with a new chemistry using its own machinery designed in-house last year, some people misunderstood it as Tesla trying to move away from getting battery cells from suppliers.

But Elon Musk made it clear that Tesla still plans to buy as many battery cell as it can from suppliers:

“The reason Tesla is doing its own cell production is in order to accelerate the growth. It is not to make less use of our cell suppliers. In fact, I want to be really clear Tesla wants to increase purchases from cell suppliers. And we’ve been very clear with our cell suppliers, whether it be CATL or Panasonic or LG, that we will take as many batteries as they can produce, so — and we urge them to increase their production and we will buy as much as they can send to us.”

Lately, we have been learning that these cells from other suppliers will also be Tesla’s own new 4680 cells.

Panasonic producing Tesla 4680 cells

Last year, Panasonic announced plans to produce the Tesla 4680 cell itself.

Now the company said that a new production line for the new cell is planned at Gigafactory Nevada for later this year (via Reuters):

The Japanese electronics conglomerate is also planning to add a new production line at the Nevada factory it owns with Tesla, and is looking at building a lithium-ion battery business in Norway in a bid to tap European carmakers.

Panasonic plans to start test production for the new line – for Tesla’s 4680 battery – in the financial year beginning April 1, Umeda said.

Hirokazu Umeda, Panasonic’s CFO, also said that the company now expects the partnership to be profitable during the upcoming fiscal year even with the new investment to deploy the new 4680 battery cell production.

On top of the new 4680 production capacity from Panasonic at Gigafactory Nevada, Tesla plans to deploy its own production at Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas.