Panasonic has clinched deals to provide batteries for two carmakers’ electric vehicle ambitions as the auto industry increasingly presses forward with electrification. The Japanese company on Friday said it had reached an agreement to provide Mazda Motor with lithium-ion batteries for its electric vehicles, capping talks that began last June.
Although neither company provided specific details, the agreement is likely to help Mazda further its EV plans. The automaker has dedicated $10.6 billion to ramp up its electric business and expects battery EVs to account for as much as 40% of its sales by the end of the decade.
The deal with Mazda is Panasonic’s second this month. It announced a similar agreement with Subaru on March 19 after months of discussions, although Panasonic again declined to provide details.
Subaru has been late getting into the EV race. The company currently has just one electric car to its name, the Solterra, which was jointly designed with Toyota. The automaker is aiming to catch up in the electrification race and sell 600,000 EVs annually by 2030. It’s invested about $10.5 billion into those efforts and plans to launch 7 new EVs by 2028.
The agreements are also big wins for Panasonic — the fourth-largest EV battery maker in the world — which counts Tesla as its main customer in the U.S. Panasonic produces about 8% of the world’s EV batteries and has been aggressively pursuing new technology to improve its products.
In October, the company signed a deal with California-based Sila, which agreed to provide Panasonic with U.S.-made silicon powder. Silas’ “Titan Silicon” anode powder replaces graphite in traditional lithium-ion batteries. The switch has the potential to enable 500-mile nonstop trips and 10-minute recharging times, according to Wired.