TOKYO (Reuters) -Panasonic Holdings will postpone its plan to bring its new U.S. electric vehicle battery plant to full capacity by March 2027 as Tesla, its main customer, is experiencing sluggish sales, the Nikkei business daily reported on Friday. The new target date to reach full production of 30 gigawatt-hours at the $4 billion plant […]
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Panasonic to postpone US EV battery plan on slow Tesla sales, Nikkei says
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TOKYO (Reuters) -Panasonic Holdings will postpone its plan to bring its new U.S. electric vehicle battery plant to full capacity by March 2027 as Tesla, its main customer, is experiencing sluggish sales, the Nikkei business daily reported on Friday.
The new target date to reach full production of 30 gigawatt-hours at the $4 billion plant in the U.S. state of Kansas has yet to be fixed, the Nikkei said.
Panasonic said it could not immediately comment.
The Kansas plant, Panasonic’s second large-scale battery plant in the United States after one in Nevada, is scheduled to start mass production soon, the newspaper said.
Tesla has been grappling with a series of challenges including CEO Elon Musk’s public feud with U.S. President Donald Trump, the end of U.S. EV tax credits and a sales slump due to ageing vehicle lineup.
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka, Maki Shiraki; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Jamie Freed)