Toyota Motor and Panasonic Corporation have joined hands to establish a joint venture specializing in automotive prismatic batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).

The joint venture will be called Prime Planet Energy & Solutions, Inc.

This latest decision comes a year after the two companies announced that they had concluded a business integration contract and a joint venture contract for the formation of a new company. In the joint venture, Toyota will own 51% of the stake, while Panasonic will have the rest 49%.

Prismatic batteries offer a viable alternative for providing energy for automobiles and other forms of e-mobility, which can address the growing concerns regarding environmental issues and can play a central role in driving the e-mobility ecosystem forward. Prismatic batteries are widely used in electric vehicles, mobile phones, tablets, and laptops, and the main advantage that they have got over conventional batteries is that they use less space than the cylindrical batteries because of their rectangular shape.

The new company will not only supply the batteries to Toyota but also to other customers. The new company will develop, manufacture, and sell high capacity output automotive prismatic lithium-ion batteries and develop high capacity batteries using solid-state cells. They will also develop, manufacture, and sell next-generation automotive batteries other than those which will be based on new principles.

Recently, a new research finding at IBM Research could help eliminate the use of heavy metals in battery production, and this could lead to a paradigm shift in the long-term sustainability of many elements in our energy ecosystem. The research team at IBM Research has come up with a new battery that does not use any heavy metals with sourcing concerns.

Earlier, the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had approved the proposal for setting up a national mission on transformative mobility and battery storage initiatives. Apart from this, the Cabinet has also approved the creation of a Phased Manufacturing Program to support the development of large-scale, export-competitive integrated batteries and cell-manufacturing giga-scale projects in India.

Previously, Mercom had reported that Panasonic launched Nymbus, a smart EV charging service in the Delhi-NCR region, in partnership with electric mobility service providers Smart E and qQuick. In the first phase of the roll-out, Panasonic will be deploying the service on 150 SmartE electric three-wheelers and 25 qQuick two-wheelers in the region.