Tech company and battery producer Panasonic will start production of new ‘4680’ batteries for electric cars in April 2023. Panasonic wants to sell the new batteries to Tesla, among others. For Tesla, they are the key to the arrival of a new model that should be significantly cheaper than the Model 3.
Tesla already spoke in 2020 about the arrival of a new model that should be a step below the Model 3 and that should be a lot more accessible in price than the already immensely popular EV. Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave an indication price of $25,000, about 22 grand, for the model at the time. That new smaller and especially cheaper Tesla can only see the light of day if production costs can remain low. To this end, Tesla is looking at production in China, but also at new battery technology. At the beginning of 2023, battery manufacturer Panasonic could enable the birth of the ‘baby Tesla’ with this technology.
Panasonic CEO Kazuo Tadanobu said in an interview with Bloomberg that the company will start production in April 2023 that will provide more capacity even though they have fewer cells. The company plans to supply those new batteries to Tesla as well. Tesla also has 4680 batteries in production. Panasonic wants to build the new batteries in its home country of Japan, but is also considering setting up a production facility in the United States, according to Bloomberg.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl