Tesla Motors continues to gain attention with its electric car factory in Nevada, as Panasonic will reportedly invest "billions of yen" into the Gigafactory.
The decision was revealed by Kazuhiro Tsuga, CEO of the Japanese electronics company, at this year's Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) trade show, according to The San Jose Mercury News. The funding is equal to hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.
"Our initial investment amount in the factory will be tens of billions of yen," Tsuga said. "We will expand the size as we go by pouring in further installments of similar amounts."
The factory will go toward building lithium ion batteries for Tesla's electric vehicles, such as the Model 3, which will cost $35,000 when it is made available to the public, Bidness ETC reported. 6,500 jobs are expected to come out of the facility, which will span about 10 million square feet. Tesla is also estimating that the factory will have the ability to produce 35 Gigawatts-hour of cells and 50 Gigawatts-hour of battery packs by 2020.
Panasonic has already given Tesla an initial capital of $5 million, but more money will be provided as time goes on.
The Japanese tech giant is currently responsible for producing the lithium-ion battery cells that Tesla puts in its Model S, The San Jose Mercury News reported. The company also recently introduced a new manufacturing firm called Panasonic Energy Corp., which is based in Sparks, Nevada - the same area where the Gigafactory has been established. This new company will focus on producing lithium-ion batteries.
The revelation of Panasonic's investment comes just days before Tesla is scheduled to make an announcement in Los Angeles regarding the Model S. Several ideas have been brought up by analysts about what the announcement might be for, including an all-wheel drive version of the car and the introduction of autonomous driving capabilities.
