The Toyota-Panasonic joint venture will launch a new battery production line. Will go for hybrids

Prime Planet Energy & Solutions is a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic established in 2020. Initially, it was stated that it would produce cells and batteries for electric vehicles. It is now known that about 500 hybrids will be battery-equipped on the first assembly line each year.

Toyota + Panasonic = even more hybrids

Prime Planet Energy & Solutions was established to produce rectangular lithium-ion cells for Toyota vehicles. We do not yet know their chemical composition (NCA? NCM? LiFePO4?), But we understand why this particular form was chosen and not another. Panasonic is not yet able to produce cylindrical elements for the automotive industry.

It is banned by the Tesla contract.

Panasonic has included some of its employees in the joint venture, as well as facilities in China and a plant in the Tokushima region of Japan. By 2022, the latter plans to build a new production line that will produce batteries for about 0,5 million hybrids per year. Assuming they are old, "bootstrapping" hybrids (HEV) and pluggable hybrids (PHEV) in a 9: 1 ratio, then we can evaluatethat the production capacity of all lines is from ten to several tens of GWh per year.

Cells and batteries will be produced for Toyota as well as other Japanese car manufacturers including Mazda, Subaru and Honda.

In addition to developing classic lithium-ion cells, Toyota intends to specialize in the solid-state segment. The Japanese company expects them to be commercialized as early as 2025:

> Toyota: solid-state batteries go into production in 2025 [Automotive News]

Toyota owns 51 percent of Prime Planet Energy & Solutions. The joint venture currently employs 5 people (source in PDF format), including workers from the Middle Kingdom.

Introductory photo: prismatic cells from Prime Planet Energy & Solutions and a battery from the same company (c) Prime Planet Energy & Solutions

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