panasonic says gigafactory battery output to increase for tesla's model 3 - lithium ion rechargeable battery

TOKYO (Reuters)-
Panasonic said on Tuesday that the production of a $5 billion battery "Gigabit battery" in cooperation with electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla may soon increase, as it has now understood the bottlenecks hindering production.
Panasonic, the world's largest manufacturer of automotive lithium
Ion battery manufacturers make batteries, and Tesla adds electronics to its car's battery pack.
Earlier this month, Tesla blamed manufacturing bottlenecks for limiting its mass production.
The market target for the three cars is 260, not 1,500.
Kazuiro Tsuga, Panasonic's chief executive, said at the earnings briefing that the delay in the automation of the battery pack line meant that some stages had to be done manually. “This process (
For Battery Pack)
"This will be automated soon, and then the number of vehicles that will be produced will increase significantly," Tsuga said . ".
He declined to comment on the extent to which the production of Model 3 will lag behind its target schedule.
Earlier, Panasonic said on Tuesday that car demand in July helped --
Operating profit rose 6% in September, exceeding analysts' expectations.
335 billion yen was maintained ($2. 96 billion)
As of this year's forecast.
Analysts say Panasonic's huge investment has made the company highly sensitive to Tesla's strategy.
On Tuesday, Tsuga acknowledged that bottlenecks could affect earnings, but said the contract with Tesla was designed to hedge risks.
He also said that the battery business with other customers is profitable.
Panasonic sees batteries at the heart of its plan to nearly double revenue from its car business.
The year ended March 2022, 5 trillion yen.
To this end, it has been actively expanding its global battery production capacity.
It plans to start production this fiscal year, end the third month of a new factory in Dalian, China, and increase production lines in Japan
Measures that can reduce dependence on Tesla.
Noboru Sato, former battery engineer at Honda Motor Co. , Ltd. , former vice president of Samsung SDI Co. , Ltd. , a Korean rechargeable battery manufacturer, Panasonic said, "at the request of Honda and Toyota Motor, decided to build a factory in China.
Sato said: "Toyota and Honda are already customers of Panasonic batteries and they are looking for ways to purchase batteries in China as the government of the world's largest car market, promote electric vehicles as a means to prevent pollution.
"Panasonic's decision to produce batteries in China has solved their problems," Sato said . ".
Panasonic, Honda and Toyota declined to comment. ($1 = 113. 3000 yen)