Stellantis and BMW to collaborate with Panasonic
According to the news of the Wall Street Journal; Stellantis NV and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Panasonic Holdings Corp. and to team up to set up electric vehicle battery factories in North America.
Panasonic specializes in cylindrical batteries that look like an oversized version of the AA batteries commonly used in home appliances. Over the past decade, Japan-based Panasonic has produced billions of cylindrical batteries for its main automaker customer.
Cylindrical batteries tend to be smaller. That is, thousands of batteries must be connected together to power a vehicle. This can increase costs and the potential for errors in production.
Ram Chandrasekaran, who until last month led road transport research at Wood Mackenzie, said Panasonic and others are working on larger versions of cylindrical batteries that have caught the attention of automakers.
“Recent developments indicate that we are at a time in the evolution of electric vehicle (EV) technology where cylindrical batteries are working quite well,” said Chandrasekaran.
