Panasonic Starts Making EV Batteries in Kansas
Panasonic Energy has started making 2170 cylindrical battery cells at a new factory near Kansas City. The company aims to produce about 32 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of batteries each year in the future.
This Kansas factory is Panasonic’s second plant for making batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States. Their factory in Sparks, Nevada, which opened in 2017, currently produces around 41 GWh of batteries annually.
The new Kansas factory will use streamlined production methods, which Panasonic expects will make it 20 percent more efficient than the Nevada factory. They also plan to use new materials that could increase the battery’s capacity by about five percent. Currently, Panasonic’s lithium-ion batteries store 800 watt-hours per liter of energy.
The Kansas Factory
The factory is expected to create up to 4,000 direct jobs and around 8,000 total jobs, including positions in related industries and supplier companies. Panasonic Energy is also working with universities, like the University of Kansas, to help train workers for these jobs.
Kazuo Tadanobu, CEO of Panasonic Energy, said the opening of the Kansas factory is a big step towards increasing battery production in the US. He thanked local partners and the state of Kansas for their support, saying this will help speed up the transition to electric vehicles and strengthen the supply chain.
Source: Panasonic Energy Corporation of North America
I’m Rohan Mehta, the voice behind KhelRe—a trusted and steadily growing blog dedicated to electric vehicles (EVs) in India. With over five years of experience as a tech and automotive blogger, I turned my frustrations with owning an EV into a mission: to help others make more intelligent choices in this fast-evolving world of electric mobility.
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