Panasonic Corp. has spent the past six months developing a battery cell with higher energy density and better fast-charging performance.
But taking an electric vehicle battery to a new level requires more than a tweak, said Celina Mikolajczak, vice president of battery technology at Panasonic Energy North America. The current innovation involves changes in design, materials and manufacturing processes.
"People like to envision a cell as kind of a commodity product," Mikolajczak said. But a lithium ion cell is not a commodity product, she told Automotive News.
"Every design has its own challenges. It has its own strengths. It has its own demerits. I make a cell that's optimized for one customer, a different customer wants a different optimization," she said.
The product in question, known as Panasonic's 2170 cell, supplies power to the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y batteries that are made at the Gigafactory in Reno, Nev.,…