Panasonic Bets on Tesla ‘Beer Can’ Battery to Unlock $25,000 EVs
Bloomberg
2 hrs ago
(Bloomberg) --
Panasonic Corp. is betting that close to a century of experience making car batteries has prepared it to manufacture a difficult-to-produce next-generation battery championed by Tesla Inc. as the key to unlocking cheaper and more ubiquitous electric vehicles.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, first unveiled the 4680 battery at Tesla’s Battery Day in September as a “massive breakthrough” in cell technology that will make it possible for his company to produce EVs that sell for $25,000, roughly a third less than Tesla’s most basic Model 3. While Tesla plans to make the cells in-house, it has also asked its oldest battery supplier, Panasonic, to begin producing them as well.