Toyota and Matsushita will collaborate on New Hybrid-Battery Plant

Toyota Motor Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. plan to build a new factory to make batteries used to power hybrid vehicles as record oil prices spur demand for fuel-efficient cars.

The companies will invest an additional 20 billion yen ($193 million) in their Panasonic EV Energy Co. venture to build the factory, Toyota spokeswoman Yasue Kato said. The nickel-hydride battery plant will be built in Shizuoka Prefecture, she said.

The price of oil has doubled in the past year and reached $135.09 a barrel yesterday, prompting drivers to buy cars that use less gasoline. Toyota plans to sell 1 million hybrid cars including the Prius annually in the early part of next decade and will eventually offer hybrid options on all models.

``The new plant is necessary for Toyota to meet the sales goal,'' Atsushi Kawai, a senior analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities Co. in Tokyo, who has a ``neutral'' rating on the stock.

Panasonic EV is 60 percent owned by Toyota, based in central Japan's Toyota City. Matsushita, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, owns a 40 percent stake.

Prius Sales

``We will cooperate with Toyota on expanding the joint venture,'' Matsushita spokesman Akira Kadota said today. The Nikkei newspaper reported earlier that the venture plans to boost capacity at its existing plant and build two hybrid-battery plants, doubling annual production of batteries to about 1 million by 2011. The paper didn't say where it obtained the information.

One of the new Panasonic EV plants will make lithium-ion batteries to power Toyota's plug-in hybrids, the newspaper said. Toyota's Kato would neither confirm nor deny the report.

Toyota said in December it is studying mass production of lithium-ion batteries with Matsushita Electric.

A hybrid vehicle combines a conventional gasoline engine with an electric motor. The motor powers the vehicle at low speeds, and the gasoline engine takes over as the car gains speed. The motor's battery pack is charged by the gasoline engine and power regenerated by braking.

Global sales of Toyota's Prius through April have totaled about 1.03 million vehicles since it went on sale first in Japan in 1997, the company said earlier this month. North America accounted for 58 percent of the total sales and 31 percent were from Japan.

The Prius gets 46 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, the best fuel economy of any model rated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Toyota fell 0.8 percent to 5,140 yen at the 3 p.m. close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Matsushita rose 0.9 percent to 2,360 yen.