(Tokyo) Japan’s Panasonic on Thursday announced plans to invest about $4 billion to build its second U.S. lithium-ion battery factory in Kansas, as a major partner and supplier to automaker Tesla. notably.
Updated yesterday at 11:14 p.m.
“With the increasing electrification of the automotive market, expanding battery production in the United States is crucial to meet demand,” said Kazuo Tadanobu, head of the Panasonic Energy division quoted in the press release.
“This project will transform the economy of Kansas,” welcomed the governor of this Midwestern state, Laura Kelly, also quoted in the press release from the Japanese group.
To be built in De Soto, on the edge of Kansas City, the plant could create up to 4,000 new jobs according to Panasonic.
No start date for operations has been mentioned. “Nothing has been decided yet” on this point, a spokeswoman for the group told AFP.
The project has yet to get the green light from Panasonic’s board of directors.
This announcement comes three months after the inauguration of a new Tesla mega-factory in Austin, Texas (southern United States).
Panasonic had been an early partner of Tesla, the two companies operating together since 2017 a giant factory in Nevada (western United States), in which Panasonic produces batteries for the firm of Elon Musk.
Panasonic also announced earlier this year that it would make one of its factories in Japan the initial mass production site for its new “4680” cylindrical lithium-ion battery, which is larger and more powerful than its predecessors. models, starting in its 2023/24 financial year.
In cryptic terms, the group recently explained that it preferred to start production of this new product in Japan rather than in the United States because its production of batteries with Tesla in Nevada had taken a long time to become stable and profitable. .
“We cannot tolerate delays” and “we want to have the smoothest start possible” for the production of this new model, had declared Mr. Tadanobu during a round table with journalists at the beginning of June at which the AFP had attended.
Panasonic was a world pioneer in electric batteries, but competition in this sector is becoming increasingly tough, with South Korean and Chinese groups also at the forefront in this field and car manufacturers developing their own batteries.
Last year the American manufacturer Ford announced an investment of more than 11 billion dollars with the South Korean SK Innovation to build four battery and electric vehicle factories in Kentucky and Tennessee (southern United States).
The Japanese car giant Toyota plans to start producing its own batteries for the North American market in North Carolina in 2025.