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A $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery factory in De Soto, Kansas, will help satisfy the Biden administration’s efforts to get everyone into an EV. It also will help extend the life of a coal-fired power plant. Resource Adequacy Panasonic broke ground on the facility last year. The Japanese company was slated to receive $6.8 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which has been pouring billions into electric vehicles and battery factories as part of its effort to transition America away from fossil fuels. The Kansas City Star reports that the factory will require between 200 and 250 megawatts of...

<p>A major nickel mine in a Philippines rainforest has continued to expand, mowing down acres of trees as global demand for minerals essential for electric vehicle manufacturing surges.</p><p>The Rio Tuba mine in the region of Palawan supplies an important mineral for electric vehicle batteries in Tesla and Toyota cars, but the mine is nearing an expansion that would cause it to grow from four square miles to 14 square miles, according to an NBC News investigation. The growth of the mine would cause massive deforestation of the land which environmentalists warn could destroy the area’s ecosystem.</p>

Panasonic has debuted its 4680 cylindrical battery that was previewed at Tesla’s Battery Day event last year. The battery will purportedly store five times as much energy and cost half as much to build as the 2170 lithium-ion cells Tesla currently uses in the Model 3 and Y, which are also provided by Panasonic. (Bullet point excerpt. More detail is in the body of the article)

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere — in phones, laptops, tablets, cameras and increasingly cars. Demand for lithium-ion batteries has risen sharply in the past five years and is expected to grow from a $44.2 billion market in 2020 to a $94.4 billion market by 2025, mostly due to the boom in electric cars. And a shortage of lithium-ion batteries is looming in the U.S.Former Tesla CTO and Elon Musk's right-hand man, JB Straubel, started Redwood Materials in 2017 to help address the need for more raw materials and to solve the problem of e-waste. The company recycles end-of-life batteries and then...

Elon Musk test-drove the ID.3 when he made a final stopover to meet with one of his biggest competitors, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess. Musk also inspected the ID.4 electric SUV that Volkswagen will launch later this month. Before Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk returned to the US after a three-day visit to Germany, he made a final stopover to meet with one of his biggest competitors - Volkswagen AG CEO Herbert Diess. The two auto executives met at a small airport in Braunschweig for about two hours on Thursday evening and Musk test-drove VW’s ID.3 electric-car, according to...

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) already has some of the most energy-dense electric vehicle batteries available, with the company's Model S able to travel over 400 miles on a single charge. Now it looks like Tesla's vehicles will be able to travel even farther, as a report from Reuters details Panasonic's (OTC: PCRFY) lans for future improvements. Over the next five years, Panasonic is planning to increase energy density by 20%, while also having cobalt-free batteries available in the next two to three years, according to Reuters. The 2170 cells that will be receiving these improvements are currently found in Tesla's...

During a staff meeting at the Riverbend plant Wednesday morning, Panasonic Solar North America President Mark Shima announced what published reports had already indicated: all 400 Panasonic employees at the South Buffalo solar production plant would be losing their jobs at the end of May. "This is a really tough announcement but I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to all of you," Shima told the employees. 7 Eyewitness News obtained audio of the meeting, in which Shima explains why Panasonic is shutting down and what this means for staff at the facility co-located with Tesla. "We have been dealing...

(Reuters) - The “great majority” of solar cells being produced at Tesla Inc’s factory in upstate New York are being sold overseas instead of being used in the company’s trademark “Solar Roof” as originally intended, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. The exporting underscores the depth of Tesla’s troubles in the U.S. solar business, which the electric car maker entered in 2016 with its controversial $2.6 billion purchase of SolarCity. Tesla has only sporadically purchased solar cells produced by its partner in the factory, Panasonic Corp, according to a Buffalo solar factory employee speaking on condition of anonymity. The rest...

The Gigafactory in Nevada is a joint operation between Panasonic and Tesla. But now, according to the Nikkei, the partners have frozen the planned 50% expansion of the Gigafactory in Nevada, and Panasonic has suspended its investment in Tesla’s Shanghai plant that is currently under construction. And now there is this awful question about demand for Tesla vehicles hanging over the battery plants, as deliveries plunged 31% globally in Q1 from Q4, to 63,000 vehicles: Model S and X in Q1 deliveries plunged 56% from Q4 to just 12,100 vehicles. And it’s not just a seasonal blip: this was down...

The so-called V3 Supercharger operates at 250 kilowatts -- approximately twice that of the older stations -- and can charge some of its cars at a rate of 75 miles every five minutes, which Tesla is promoting as “1,000 miles per hour,” without explaining the math. (75 x 12 = 900, doesn't it?)(Following the publication of this article, a Tesla representative clarified that the "1,000 mph" speed is a peak rate that is only sustained for a portion of the initial five-minute period on batteries at a low state of charge. Average speeds over longer charging times were not...

Tesla Inc. (TSLA) said Monday it will buy Maxwell Technologies Inc. (MXWL) , a battery technology firm based in San Diego, for around $218 million. Telsla will pay $4.75 for each Maxwell share, the company said, a 54.7% premium to its closing price Friday of $3.07, and bring the company into the corporate fold as a wholly owned subsidiary. "We are very excited with today's announcement that Tesla has agreed to acquire Maxwell. Tesla is a well-respected and world-class innovator that shares a common goal of building a more sustainable future," said Maxwell CEO Franz Fink. "We believe this transaction...

A team of engineers led by 94-year-old John Goodenough, professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery, has developed the first all-solid-state battery cells that could lead to safer, faster-charging, longer-lasting rechargeable batteries for handheld mobile devices, electric cars and stationary energy storage. Goodenough’s latest breakthrough, completed with Cockrell School senior research fellow Maria Helena Braga, is a low-cost all-solid-state battery that is noncombustible and has a long cycle life (battery life) with a high volumetric energy density and fast rates of charge and discharge. The engineers describe...

Tesla reveals $5 billion Gigafactory, the world's largest battery plant By Justin Hyde 6 hours ago Motoramic   .View photo Tesla Motors No automaker has quite the momentum that Tesla Motors enjoys today. It sells every car it builds easily, with customers queuing around the globe. It's considered the best car for sale in America by several critics, and Wall Street has bought into Elon Musk's vision with a fervor rarely seen outside riverside baptisms. And yet everything Tesla stands for today and wants to accomplish in the future rides on a single stubborn, expensive piece of technology — the...

Future investments from the battery maker in U.S. and overseas facilities are reportedly in question, making stock prices suffer in the early hours. Tesla and battery manufacturer Panasonic will freeze investments into the automaker's Nevada-based battery plant over weakening demand concerns, reports Japanese publication Nikkei. Both the automaker and Panasonic had reportedly considered raising production capacity by more than 54 percent by 2020 (from 35-gigawatt hours to 54 GWh), however, due to apprehension surrounding financial and demand problems, the partners will not proceed with the expansion as planned, halting further construction of the Gigafactory barring further consideration. Tesla shares have...

New York State managed to draw significant national media attention this week when Amazon decided to cancel its plan to open a new HQ in Queens. AOC, who apparently now runs the Democratic Party, immediately declared victory, having ensured that a caravan of tens of thousands of new, well-paying jobs wouldn’t invade the area. But as difficult as it may be to believe, that wasn’t the worst economic news New Yorkers had to face.The less reported story had to do with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to save the upstate region by investing in “green technology” companies, presumably also bringing...

LG Electronics is expanding its U.S. presence with a new solar module assembly plant in Huntsville, Alabama. The South Korean technology giant will invest $28 million to set up the factory that's expected to create 160 new full-time jobs. LG will add two production lines at its 48-acre campus in Huntsville, where the company has had operations for four decades. The solar module plant will bring LG's total employment in the Southern city to more than 400 workers. Starting in early 2019, the new manufacturing plant is expected to produce 500 megawatts of solar modules per year. LG joins a...

CARSON CITY — Independent auditors concluded Tesla Motors Inc. met all conditions for tax abatements and credits during the eight months after lawmakers approved the perks in a special 2014 legislative session. The audit by accounting firm Grant Thornton calculated Tesla has earned $9.6 million in transferable tax credits for the period Oct. 17, 2014, through June 30. Tesla, in partnership with Panasonic Corp., is building a $5 billion lithium battery factory east of Reno in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. To lure the electric carmaker led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to Nevada, state lawmakers last year approved $1.3...

Washington, D.C. (January 9, 2013) -- The Consumer Electronics Show is more than a convention. It's an opportunity for companies to position themselves as leaders in their respective categories. And with the world's media -- and more than 150,000 attendees -- watching, there's a lot at stake. So with the 2013 CES nearing the end of day three, it's a good time to take a first look at which companies have emerged as this show's winners and losers. Winner: Netflix The online home video service doesn't make a single piece of hardware, but it captured the show's attention on Monday...

Panasonic's new 145-inch Ultra High Definition television boasts resolution of nearly 34 million pixels, demonstrating what the future of television may eventually look like. When it comes to TVs, bigger is better. NHK, also known as the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation, unveiled its 85-inch LCD display, developed in conjunction with Sharp, last year. Today they’ve bested their previous technology with the introduction of a 145-inch Ultra High Definition plasma display, developed in conjunction with Panasonic. The ultra-high-definition display, or Super Hi-Vision TV as NHK refers to the format, rivals IMAX theaters in detail. “Even when viewed from 1.6 meters away,...

Snips from excerpt website: Japanese solar company Sanyo plans to lay off about 140 employees in California, or about 40 percent of its manufacturing workforce in the United States, as it shifts its strategy in order to compete with large rivals, particularly those from China. The company, which is part of Panasonic, is buiding a large factory in Malaysia that will make wafers and turn them into solar cells and then panels. Panasonic plans to invest 45 billion yen (about $580 million) in the new factory. A fellow manufacturer in Japan, Sumco, announced Friday it would get out of the...