Toyota-Panasonic Battery JV to Buy Lithium From Nevada Mine of Ioneer

Japanese conglomerates Toyota Motor Corp and Panasonic Corp have announced that their joint battery venture will buy lithium from the Rhyolite Ridge mining project of ioneer Ltd. The resource will then be employed to manufacture electric vehicle batteries in the United States. The new entity is called Prime Planet Energy & Solutions (PPES).

Australia based ioneer now has key clients to work with as it has signed a deal about a month ago for the supply of lithium. The supply deal with PPES will be binding in nature. The agreement reveals that the Australian firm will have to supply about 4,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate every year to PPES. The supply will take place for five years.

The companies also reveal that ioneer will begin the supplies in 2025. A lot of the commitment depends on ioneer for it will require future finances and permits. According to reports, PPES will be able to manufacture about 150,000 electric vehicles’ batteries every year with the amount of lithium supplied by ioneer. A lot of the actual manufacturing figure will depend on the designs and related factors.

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One of the key ingredients of the agreement is that PPES is bound to use the pioneer supplied lithium to manufacture batteries within the USA and for the US electric vehicle market.

PPES is actually based out of Japan but the recent reports suggest that the company wants to set up a battery plant in western North Carolina, the USA.

Presently, ioneer owns lithium mines in Nevada state of the USA and the company wants to produce 21,000 tonnes of lithium every year. The production is expected to start in 2025.

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Besides PPES, ioneer has signed other deals to supply lithium. In July, it agreed with Ford Motor and in 2021, with Ecopro. PPES was created by Toyota and Panasonic two years ago to compete with Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) which is already an established leader in the EV battery industry.

The EV battery market in America is set for a massive bloom as the electric vehicles’ sales is rising drastically. According to Fortune Business Insights, the U.S. electric vehicle market is projected to grow from $28.24 billion in 2021 to $137.43 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 25.4 per cent in forecast period, 2021-2028.

Toyota, as the largest auto firm worldwide in 2021 and before that in 2020, when it overtook Volkswagen, has been working to hedge its bats on the EV future. Besides investments in EV batteries using lithium ion technologies, it has been adding solid state battery patents to its armoury, as well as investing early in fuel cells for Hydrogen powered vehicles. The firm is likely to play a key role in deciding the direction of global auto shifts accordingly.

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