Mazda has begun discussions with Panasonic for provide of cylindrical battery cells for future EVs, the 2 firms introduced Wednesday.

The objective of the discussions is to hammer out an settlement for Panasonic to produce cells from factories in Japan and North America to be used by Mazda in EVs “scheduled to be launched within the latter half of the 2020 decade,” in response to a press launch. The businesses are simply speaking nevertheless, with no agency settlement in place.

No additional particulars got, however cells provided from North America would seemingly come from a brand new manufacturing facility in De Soto, Kansas, which has been claimed to be the largest battery plant on this planet.

Panasonic cylindrical EV battery cells

The connection between Panasonic and Mazda dates again to 2012, when Panasonic provided batteries for the Mazda Demio EV, which was leased to prospects in Japan on a restricted foundation. A collaboration at this stage might be extra far-reaching.

Except for the California-only, limited-volume MX-30, Mazda has no EVs in its U.S. lineup. That is set to vary with a clean-sheet EV platform coming within the second half of this decade, forming the idea for a number of fashions to be launched between 2025 and 2030. Mazda mentioned in 2021 that it expects its whole lineup to have a point of electrification by 2030, with EVs making up 25% of that whole.

Hybrids, together with the just lately launched 2024 Mazda CX-90 plug-in hybrid and a deliberate CX-50 hybrid, will bridge the hole till EVs primarily based on the deliberate devoted platform arrive.

2022 Mazda MX-30

Mazda has indicated that longer-range EVs aren’t the longer term, however the usage of cylindrical cells may yield effectivity beneficial properties. It is the chosen cell format of Lucid and Tesla—the 2 range-leading EV manufacturers. Tesla is Panasonic’s essential EV battery buyer; Lucid introduced in 2022 that it might start utilizing Panasonic cells as effectively.

Established automakers have been slower to undertake cylindrical cells, although. BMW confirmed a shift to this format for future EVs final yr, and Common Motors is reportedly mulling cylindrical cells for some purposes.

Mazda examined electrical versus hybrid powertrains years in the past, and concluded that drivers most well-liked the traits of EVs. As a substitute of taking that as a cue to hurry up improvement of EVs, Mazda has largely centered on efforts to enhance the effectivity of combustion engines with attention-grabbing, however in the end unsuccessful, tasks just like the SkyActiv-X homogeneous cost compression ignition (HCCI) engine and SkyActiv-D diesel.