Panasonic Says Tesla Will Get Top Priority in Supply of 4680 Batteries
February 02 2022 - 10:01AM
Dow Jones News
By Yang Jie
TOKYO--Panasonic Corp., a battery supplier to electric-vehicle
maker Tesla Inc., said it expected to start trial production this
year of a new, more powerful lithium-ion battery.
Last October, the company showed off prototypes of the battery,
which is called 4680 because it is 46 millimeters in diameter and
80 millimeters high. It is larger than previous battery cells
Panasonic has supplied to Tesla.
The company is renovating its facilities and expects to start
trial production in Wakayama prefecture, near Panasonic's
headquarters in Osaka, early in the fiscal year that begins in
April, Chief Financial Officer Hirokazu Umeda said Wednesday. A
spokeswoman said the time and place of mass production haven't been
decided yet.
"Tesla has put in an extremely strong request for the 4680, so
when we are actually able to deliver the 4680, we plan to put top
priority on Tesla," Mr. Umeda said.
The Panasonic spokeswoman said the company's business with Tesla
accounted for about 60% of the revenue in Panasonic's energy
business, which reported revenue of 194.3 billion Japanese yen
($1.69 billion) in the three months ended Dec. 31. That suggests
the Tesla business brought in roughly $1 billion for Panasonic in
the quarter.
Mr. Umeda said shipments of EV batteries to Tesla were
interrupted by logjams at ports in recent months, but didn't
specify which ports were affected
Write to Yang Jie at jie.yang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 02, 2022 09:46 ET (14:46 GMT)
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