According to the Nikkei business newspaper, Japan’s Mazda Motor (OTC: MZDAY) Corp plans to spend $10.6 billion on electric vehicle (EV) batteries and collaborate with battery supplier Envision AESC by 2030.
Through its partnership with Envision AESC, the automaker from Hiroshima will get batteries and try to make more fully electric cars at its factories in Japan, the newspaper said. Mazda and Envision AESC both refused to say anything. Because of stricter environmental rules, automakers worldwide are spending billions of dollars to make more batteries and electric vehicles (EVs). Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) said in August that it would spend up to 730 billion yen in Japan and the U.S. to make batteries for fully electric cars, not hybrids like the Prius that use gasoline and electricity. Its competitor, Honda Motor Co., said in the same month that it would build a new $4.4 billion lithium-ion battery plant for electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States with LG Energy Solution Ltd., a Korean battery supplier. Mazda will hold a news conference on Tuesday at 5:30 a.m. GMT to talk about its business plan for the next three to five years. Shoichi Matsumoto, the CEO of Envision AESC, told Reuters last month that the company was talking about new supply deals with automakers in Japan, Europe, the US, and China. Envision AESC is the battery business of the Chinese renewable energy company Envision. It is based in Japan and was started as a joint venture between Nissan (OTC: NSANY) Motor Co., NEC Corp., and NEC TOKIN Corporation, a subsidiary of NEC Corp.
Related: At the end of the trading day, the Nikkei 225 fell 1.68%.
($1 = 141.7400 yen)
