Tesla-battery maker Panasonic may add 4680 battery capacity to Kansas plant
Tesla battery supplier Panasonic Energy is considering pouring new investments potentially up to $4 billion in its De Soto, Kansas, plant to produce 4680 battery cells for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla’s next-gen vehicles.
Sources with “direct knowledge of the matter” told Nikkei Asia that the Japanese EV battery maker is considering adding production capacity beyond what is already planned for its new plant.
The plan, dubbed internally as Phase 3, includes building additional production lines at the plant, already costing Panasonic $4 billion, currently under construction. Tesla, its main customer, jointly owns a factory with Panasonic in Nevada.
“No final decision has been made,” the source said, adding that “multiple factors” need to be considered before a decision is made. But the source did say that Panasonic is eyeing new capacity to make a larger, more voluminous 4680 battery, a cylindrical lithium-ion battery boasting an energy capacity five times greater than 2170 batteries.
Tesla and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution are developing 4680 batteries, but Panasonic claims it leads the charge in the technology at this stage.
A decision on the plan is expected to come at the end of the year, as the battery maker is still evaluating the production efficiency of the 4680, which it is testing at its factory in Wakayama, Japan.
Panasonic already plans to build 2170-type cells for EVs in De Soto, its second plant in North America. In 2022, it was expected that the factory would be designated for 4680-type cylindrical battery cells for Tesla’s next-gen models, but Panasonic delayed that project.
Back in January, Panasonic said that the Kansas plant will take its annual battery capacity to 88 GWh a year, with plans to raise that to 200 GWh by early 2031.
Panasonic CTO Shoichiro Watanabe recently told Bloomberg in an interview that the company will deliver on its promise to “quadruple production capacity by the 2030 fiscal year.” And to make that happen, he said the company won’t need to rely on building new factories or pouring large investments into production plans. Rather, “we will expand battery capacity and improve productivity at the same time,” Watanabe said.
Panasonic, whose main US customer is Tesla, produces some 10% of the batteries found in electric vehicles around the world. The company plans to start producing a revised version of its 2170-type cylindrical battery cells, which Tesla uses in its Model 3 and Model Y cars, and increase its battery production output by 10%. Panasonic has also been working to increase the energy density of the 2170 cell, with the company saying that the new improvements could help reduce the overall cost of an EV.
However, the Wall Street Journal reported recently that Panasonic had already spent a large portion of its investment on the plant due to rising construction costs in the US.
Mitsutaka Fujita, a researcher at Techno Systems Research, told Nikkei Asia that Panasonic’s plan reflects Tesla’s “steady demand,” adding “that Tesla “is making a decent profit, even after its price cuts,” especially compared to legacy automakers, which are leaning on hybrids and ICE to make up for “losses in their EV business,” the report said.
Fujita also added that Tesla “desperately” wants more 4680 batteries, presumably for its Cybertruck, Semi truck, and Roadster, the report said, and that the automaker’s own battery production isn’t going as smoothly as planned.
Other automakers are using large-volume cylindrical cells with a diameter of 46 mm, but they use a different format. BMW is also using cylindrical cells with a diameter of more than 80mm in its upcoming Neue Klasse vehicles.
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Ford’s electric pickup truck is back at the top. The F-150 Lightning is once again the best-selling electric pickup in the US after overtaking the Tesla Cybertruck in the first quarter.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup
After launching in 2023, Tesla’s Cybertruck quickly outpaced the Lightning to become America’s top-selling EV pickup last year.
Since Tesla doesn’t break down regional sales, registration data gives us our best estimate. The latest registration data from S&P Global Mobility (via Automotive News) shows that the F-150 Lightning retook the title in March and the first quarter of 2025.
Ford’s electric pickup notched 2,598 registrations in March, topping the Tesla Cybertruck with 2,170. In the first quarter, the F-150 Lightning remained ahead with 7,913 registrations, compared to the Cybertruck’s 7,126.
Although the Cybertruck was the fifth top-selling EV in the US last year, it didn’t even crack the top ten in March. It placed ninth through the first three months of 2025, behind the Volkswagen ID.4.
While Tesla and Ford remained the leaders in the electric pickup market, several new models are gaining momentum. According to the most recent numbers from Cox Automotive, GM sold 2,383 Chevy Silverado EVs and 1,249 GMC Sierra EV models in Q1. Meanwhile, Rivian sold 1,727 R1Ts during the quarter.
Earlier today, Electrek reported that new models, including the Honda Prologue and Chevy Blazer EV, helped drive EV registrations up 20% in the US in March.
Although the Lightning reclaimed the crown from Tesla, Ford’s electric pickup isn’t exactly flying off the lot. Ford reported Lightning sales fell 16% to just 1,740 units in April. Through April 2025, Ford has sold 8,927 electric trucks, down 9% from the 9,833 it handed over last year.
Electrek’s Take
To be fair, Tesla is still ahead by a wide margin in the US. The S&P numbers show Tesla had over 51,000 registrations in March, up 1% after two months of lower YOY growth.
GM’s Chevy surpassed Ford to become the second-best-selling EV brand with nearly 8,500 registrations, an increase of 274% from last year. Ford dropped to third with 7,361 registrations.
Although it’s just one quarter, it’s starting to show how Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s political antics are likely impacting sales. After the Cybertruck’s initial hype, it appears many buyers are opting for traditional pickups, like the F-150 Lighting.
Meanwhile, Ram is delaying its first electric pickup, the 1500 REV, again. Ram is pushing production back until summer 2027, saying it’s “extending the quality validation period.” The plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Ramcharger will also be delayed until the first quarter of 2026.
After pulling the Ramcharger ahead of the fully electric version last year, Stellantis blamed weak demand for EV pickups in the US.
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Environment
Podcast: EV tax credit on chopping block, Tesla’s China problem, Slate gets interest, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss how the GOP plans to kill the EV tax credit, Tesla’s China problem, Slate getting some interest, and more.
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As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
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Tesla’s Austin robotaxi fleet will be powered by ‘plenty of teleoperation’ as it “can’t screw up”, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley after meeting with Tesla.
You won’t hear anything negative about Tesla from Morgan Stanley very often.
Morgan Stanley’s Tesla analyst, Adam Jonas, has often been described as a ‘Tesla cheerleader’ on Wall Street for his extremely rosy view of the company. He generally believes whatever Elon Musk claims and adds a slight delay to the CEO’s timeline.
Recently, Jonas met with Tesla with some clients and released a new note that he hinted to be based on what he learned from Tesla during the meeting.
He claims that the planned “robotaxi” rollout in Austin next month is going to use “plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels”:
Austin’s a ‘go’ but fleet size will be low. Think 10 to 20 cars. Public roads. Invite only. Plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels (“we can’t screw up”). Still waiting for a date.
‘Tele ops’ stands for teleoperations, meaning that Tesla employees will be able to remotely access Tesla’s vehicles and operate them in some capacity.
Last year, Electrek reported that Tesla started hiring for this teleoperation team before the Robotaxi launch in Austin.
We have been extensively reporting on how much Tesla’s planned robotaxi fleet in Austin diverges from its previously disclosed plans of deploying “unsupervised Full Self-Driving” in its consumer vehicles.
Tesla plans to deploy “10-20” Model Y vehicles to offer ride-hailling services in a geo-fenced area of Austin, Texas using a version of its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ (FSD), but instead of being supervised by a driver inside the vehicle, like the current product in consumer vehicles, Tesla is going to used employees to remotely supervise the vehicles.
The service is supposed to launch in June.
Electrek’s Take
I seriously don’t get why anyone could get excited about this. It is going to be a bit better than the current FSD, which has stalled for months as Tesla focuses on optimizing the system for Austin, but it will still basically be supervised – just remotely.
There’s a chance that it won’t even be remote as some believe Tesla will even fumble that timeline and use safety drivers, but I don’t know. I’m about 50/50 on that prediction right now.
Remote supervisors make more sense as Tesla can claim a little victory even though it would be less impressive than what Waymo has been doing for years.
The real goal that Tesla sold to consumers is that their privately owned vehicles would become self-driving without supervision and we are still so far from that. It’s clear that this project is mainly to distract them from that fact.
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