The electric car producer Tesla has secured $200m of funding from Panasonic for its US based lithium-ion battery plant, it has been revealed.
It is believed that the project could attract up to $5 billion and that Panasonic’s investment alone could soar to $1 billion. The Japanese electronics giant has been supplying Tesla with batteries for a number of years signed a preliminary agreement in May confirming their involvement in the project.
Tesla hopes that the deal will transform the company into a mass market producer. Vehicles such as its Model S are currently priced at $71,000, but Chairman Elon Musk hopes that the project will help to bring costs down.
Several sites in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are currently being scoped out by Tesla for production factories. Tesla hopes to double the production of lithium-ion batteries by 2020.
