Japan will provide more subsidies for electric vehicle (EV) battery production, pledging to support Toyota Motor and other major companies.
Tokyo would support 12 projects for storage batteries, materials or production equipment worth up to 350 billion yen ($2.44 billion), Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ken Saito reported.
We hope that these efforts will strengthen Japan’s storage battery supply chain and the storage battery industry’s competitiveness.
The move will help expand the country’s annual battery production volume by about 50 per cent, according to Japanese media. The government support included backing investments by Toyota, Nissan Motor and joint projects with carmakers Subaru and Mazda Motor.
Toyota will invest a total of about 245 billion yen along with its subsidiaries Prime Planet Energy & Solutions and Primearth EV Energy. The company will start supplying batteries from November 2026. The plan involves the construction of battery plants in Hyogo and Fukuoka prefectures.
Nissan also stated that it had received certification from the government for a plan to produce lithium-iron-phosphate batteries. The automaker intended to install such batteries in minicars from fiscal 2028, receiving up to 55.5 billion yen in support.
Meanwhile, Panasonic’s energy division, which made batteries for Tesla, and Subaru said in a joint statement that they would open a plant in Gunma prefecture to supply cyclindrical lithium-ion batteries from the 2028 business year.
In a joint statement, the companies announced that Panasonic Energy would produce batteries for Mazda’s EVs at its Suminoe and Kaizuka plants in Osaka from 2027, with the carmaker completing the batteries.
