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Panasonic is stepping up its efforts at Tesla Gigafactory Nevada through a significant expansion of its operations, including investments in new infrastructure to produce higher capacity batteries at a lower cost and add new workers.

“There’s some construction work that needs to take place over the next couple of months,” said Carl Walton, vice president of production engineering and facilities for Panasonic Energy of North America. “Then early next year, we’ll be installing new equipment with production starting shortly after that."

The new line to Giga Nevada will be the fourteenth and should increase its capacity by about 10%. This announcement was made at the end of August and has now been confirmed once again. It currently stands at 35-gigawatt hours per year.

Tesla Giga Nevada to Grow Battery Cell Production by 10% Annually, Panasonic to Add Another Linehttps://t.co/8pRw2w5f04

— Tesmanian.com (@Tesmanian_com) August 19, 2020

In addition, this increase in production capacity will require around 100 new employees in addition to the approximately 7,000 currently employed there. According to Walton, demand for electric vehicles is growing rapidly worldwide and the expansion will help Tesla serve the market.

But modernizations are also pending on the existing systems in the cell and battery Gigafactory. Panasonic has already begun converting the technology into new battery technology, Walton said. It offers two advantages that Tesla CEO Elon Musk greatly values: they are cheaper to manufacture and have a higher capacity. Panasonic is talking about a 5% increase in the energy density of its cells for Tesla, and in the longer term, that figure should be increased by 20%. From a cost point of view, using less cobalt is beneficial.

Tesla Battery Partner Panasonic Plans To Boost 2170 Cells' Energy Density By 20% https://t.co/nH97Yi1WhQ pic.twitter.com/SS57PN3hVW

— Tesmanian.com (@Tesmanian_com) July 30, 2020

According to previous reports, Panasonic is investing approximately $100 million in an expansion at Giga Nevada. 

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