Automaker Toyota Motors and Panasonic established a battery joint-venture, Prime Planet Energy and Solutions, for electric automotive applications.
Prime Planet will supply batteries to Toyota and a wide range of mobility and automotive producers with an expected start of 1 April 2020. Toyota will retain a 51pc ownership, with the remaining 49pc under Panasonic.
The new company will have offices in Tokyo and Kansai, Japan, and employ roughly 5,100 and produce high-capacity high-output prismatic lithium-ion batteries.
A Chinese subsidiary is expected to employ 2,400.
In addition, the joint-venture will target automotive solid-state batteries and development of new "next-generation" batteries.
No details on the capacity or number of batteries the company will produce were provided.
Panasonic and Toyota laid out their plan for the joint-venture in a business-integration contract in January of 2019.
By Zach Schumacher
