Panasonic Planning Tesla Partnership Extension Via Self-Driving Vehicle Components

As part of a general shift to the automotive industry, the Japanese firm Panasonic Corporation is aiming to extend its partnership with Tesla to include the production of self-driving vehicle components, according to the company’s CEO.

The aim is a primary part of the company’s new growth strategy, which reportedly focuses the company’s attention on corporate clients rather than on the consumer goods market. Considering the rise of low-cost electronics from China (iPhones, etc.) and the likely rapid growth of the self-driving vehicle market over the coming years, the plans seem to make sense.

Panasonic CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga stated in an interview: “We are deeply interested in Tesla’s self-driving system. We are hoping to expand our collaboration by jointly developing devices for that, such as sensors.”

Reuters provides more:

“One candidate would be so-called organic photoconductive film CMOS image sensors currently under development at Panasonic, which enable high-speed sensing of moving objects without distortion, Tsuga said.

“Panasonic aims to add such technology to an automotive business that also includes cockpit displays and navigation systems. It targets annual sales of 2 trillion yen ($17.43 billion) for that business in the year through March 2019, from 1.3 trillion yen in the year ended March 2016.”

In addition to the automotive sector, it should be remembered that Tesla and Panasonic are also now collaborating on solar photovoltaic product production in the US. With regard to the automotive sector, Panasonic is already planning to invest a total of more than $1.5 billion into the Gigafactory.

Photo by Kyle Field | CleanTechnica