Panasonic Plans Big Investment in Tesla Battery Plant

Oct 07, 2014

Panasonic Corp. will invest tens of billions of yen as a first installment in a Tesla Motors Inc.’s lithium-ion battery factory, the chief executive of the Japanese electronics company said Tuesday.

“Our initial investment amount in the factory will be tens of billions of yen,” Chief Executive Kazuhiro Tsuga told reporters at the annual CEATEC trade show in Chiba, near Tokyo. “We will expand the size as we go by pouring in further installments of similar amounts.”

The Osaka-based firm said last week it had formed a company in the U.S. to produce batteries for Tesla’s electric car “gigafactory” in Nevada

“Our policy is to avoid a situation where Tesla wants to make more cars but doesn’t have enough batteries,” Mr. Tsuga said.

In a call with investors in July, Tesla founder Elon Musk said he expected Panasonic to contribute 30%- 40% of the battery factory’s total cost, likely to reach $5 billion. Tesla will cover about half the amount.

Turning his attention to foreign-exchange rates, Mr. Tsuga said separately that his company would find it desirable for rates to remain stable, and that the dollar rising as high as ¥120 would be “excessive.”

Source: Wall Street Journal