Panasonic will supply Lucid with batteries for electric cars

On Dec. 13, 2022 Panasonic Holdings said it entered into a supply agreement to supply lithium-ion batteries to electric car maker Lucid Group.

Panasonic Holdings said on Dec. 13 that it had reached a supply agreement to supply lithium-ion batteries to electric vehicle maker Lucid Group, foreign media reported. Panasonic is now looking to expand its customer base.

Panasonic now supplies nearly all of its car batteries to Tesla as the company rapidly expands its production of electric vehicles. While Panasonic is currently benefiting from Tesla's growing battery demand, the company's executives are wary of relying too heavily on one customer.

Kazuo Tadanobu, head of Panasonic's energy business, said in a statement that "forming partnerships with technology-leading electric vehicle manufacturers such as Lucid is critical to our goals."

Lucid said it will use Panasonic batteries in the long-endurance version of the Lucid Air and the Gravity SUV, which will begin production in 2024. In August, Lucid halved its forecast for electric vehicle production, citing huge supply chain and logistics challenges. The company says it has 37,000 pre-orders and expects to produce 6,000 to 7,000 luxury electric vehicles this year.

Panasonic has worked with Tesla for more than a decade, supplying batteries for Tesla's first cars. Although Panasonic has been supplying Tesla products since its early days, it has been slow to scale up compared to the days of LG New Energy and Nyundeo. Panasonic has been stressing that its profits and safety are more important than market share.

On Oct 31, Panasonic Holdings said it would build a new battery plant in the U.S. state of Kansas in November, aiming to start mass production by March 2025, targeting the fast-growing electric vehicle market in North America. The new plant will have an initial annual production capacity of about 30 GWh, equivalent to about 60 percent of the company's current annual battery capacity for electric vehicles in Japan and the United States.