Porsche Electric Vehicle Battery Joint Venture Established... Annual Production of 1,000 Batteries

Porsche Taycan [Photo by EPA Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] Porsche is accelerating the development of battery technology to be used in electric sports cars by establishing a joint venture with German lithium-ion battery manufacturer Custom Cells.

On the 20th (local time), Porsche announced plans to establish a joint venture with Custom Cells, with Bloomberg reporting that Porsche plans to secure an 83.75% stake in the joint venture. Porsche plans to invest tens of millions of euros in the joint venture to produce high-performance batteries for electric sports cars.

In a statement, Porsche emphasized that "batteries are the combustion chambers of the future," highlighting that batteries are the core of the electric vehicle era. It added, "The new joint venture will play a key role in researching, developing, producing, and selling high-performance batteries," and "plans to produce small batteries starting in 2024."

While American electric vehicle company Tesla leads the electric vehicle market, traditional automakers have recently been accelerating investments in the electric vehicle sector. Porsche has also expanded its investment in electric vehicles by launching the pure electric sports sedan Taycan in 2019.

Batteries used in sports cars require higher technology as they must withstand higher temperatures and have faster charging speeds.

Oliver Blume, CEO of Porsche, said in an interview with the German weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag that the charging time of the newly developed battery will be less than 15 minutes. According to CEO Blume, the current Taycan battery takes 22 minutes and 30 seconds to charge from 5% to 80%.

Porsche explained that it will have production capacity to manufacture batteries for 1,000 sports cars annually at a factory located on the outskirts of Stuttgart.

Porsche expects that Taycan sales will soon surpass those of the existing internal combustion model Porsche 911, and that by 2030, the proportion of electric vehicle sales will be at least 80%. It also announced plans to launch an electric version of the Macan sports utility vehicle (SUV) in 2023.