Earlier this month, Toyota announced that it had agreed with Panasonic to make affiliated company Primearth EV Energy (PEVE) a wholly-owned subsidiary in order to strengthen its capabilities in mass-producing automotive batteries.
That acquisition has now been completed, and the automaker says that it intends to change the PEVE company name to Toyota Battery from October 1 this year. Toyota said that the new company name embodies its determination to leverage the technology and skills honed since PEVE’s establishment in 1996 to broaden its scope of battery manufacturing.
In addition to manufacturing batteries for hybrid vehicles, Toyota said it plans to have PEVE begin producing batteries for battery EVs and plug-in hybrids. The company said the shift into mass-producing a wide variety of electric vehicle batteries will enable it to respond flexibly to growing battery demand. The company’s headquarters will remain in Kosei city, Shizuoka prefecture.
When the company was originally established, it was known as Panasonic EV Energy, and Toyota only had a 40% share in it (Panasonic had the other 60%), but by 2005 Toyota had increased its share in the company to 60%, and by 2010, the automaker further increased its share in the company, which was then renamed Primearth, to 80.5%.
Primearth isn’t the only occasion that Toyota and Panasonic have cooperated on battery development. In 2020, both companies announced the establishment of Prime Planet Energy & Solutions, a joint venture specialising in automotive prismatic lithium-ion batteries.
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