Toyota and Panasonic have announced the establishment of Prime Planet Energy & Solutions, a joint venture specialising in automotive prismatic lithium-ion batteries. This comes just over a year since the two companies announced that they had concluded a business integration contract and a JV contract toward the establishment of a new company.
Long time battery research partners Toyota and Panasonic have also decided the outline of the joint venture. The companies say that the JV will develop highly competitive, cost-effective batteries that are safe and feature excellent quality and performance (in terms of capacity, output, durability and more) enabling use with peace of mind.
They say that the JV – which is 51% owned by Toyota and 49% owned by Panasonic – will supply batteries not only to Toyota but to all automotive customers. Employing around 5,100 staff (including 2,400 at a subsidiary in China), the JV is expected to start operations on April 1.
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Prismatic batteries are more beautiful to watch too.
So if batteries are developed by Panasonic and EV tech are developed by Geely, what does Toyota do? Stick their badges on the technology?