Tesla supplier Panasonic plans additional $4 billion U.S. EV battery plant – WSJ

(Reuters) -Panasonic Holdings Corp, a provider to electric-car maker Tesla Inc, is in talks to construct a further electrical automobile (EV) battery plant in the USA at a price of round $4 billion, the Wall Road Journal reported on Friday, citing individuals accustomed to the matter.

Panasonic is Oklahoma as the placement for its new plant, the newspaper stated. (https://on.wsj.com/3pJJs1F)

A Panasonic spokesperson stated: “We’re inspecting numerous development methods for our automotive battery enterprise, however there isn’t a additional info that we are able to share in the meanwhile apart from what we’ve got already introduced.”

In July, Panasonic chosen Kansas as the location for a brand new battery plant that state officers stated would create as much as 4,000 jobs with funding of as much as $4 billion.

At the moment, the Oklahoma Division of Commerce stated it and its companions “proceed(d) to work with Mission Ocean,” Panasonic’s battery manufacturing unit mission, and had been “optimistic for added alternatives with them sooner or later”.

The division stated on Friday that “as a consequence of non-discourse agreements (on initiatives), we is not going to be offering feedback on this story”.

Earlier this 12 months, Oklahoma stated it could allocate $698 million to pursue Mission Ocean below a invoice aimed toward attracting an unidentified firm that can make investments a minimal of $3.6 billion and create no less than 4,000 new jobs inside 5 years.

Oklahoma is a neighbouring state to Texas, residence to Tesla’s automotive and battery manufacturing services.

The Japanese conglomerate additionally stated it was potential manufacturing unit websites in Kansas and Oklahoma to produce the batteries to Tesla’s plant in Texas.

Panasonic has partnered with Tesla for greater than a decade, supplying batteries from its manufacturing unit in Nevada, California.

The auto business has been ramping up manufacturing of EVs to fulfill a surge in demand, driving up orders for batteries and uncooked supplies equivalent to lithium and cobalt, amongst others.

Tesla didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.

(Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru, Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco, Satoshi Sugiyama in Tokyo; Modifying by Jacqueline Wong and Jan Harvey)