Toyota, the world’s largest car manufacturing company is also the largest pioneer of electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid cars in the globe. As the Japanese auto major is planning to augment the production as well as encourage the spread of eco-friendly cars in the world, it is contemplating to increase the production of lithium-ion batteries.

As per the reports of a daily news paper, Toyota is about to brace itself to increase the production of lithium-ion batteries as much as by six times of its current production rate. The reports also say that the Japanese auto maker is preparing for this increased battery production for the eventual use of the batteries in Toyota’s eco-friendly model, the Toyota Prius gasoline-electric hybrid cars.

At present, most of the company’s hybrid cars are use nickel metal hydride batteries. However, the lithium-ion batteries are more efficient as well as much lighter as compared against the nickel metal hydride batteries. Thus, Toyota is contemplating to pump up the production of the lithium-ion batteries so that the company can manufacture more vehicles with the lithium-ion batteries. The Toyota cars powered by the lithium-ion batteries can be made smaller as well as lighter, which will in the process also enhance the fuel economy as well as the cars’ performance.

As per the reports of the news paper that does not name any sources of the gathered information, Toyota has joined hands with Panasonic Corp in order to build a new production facility which would require an investment if around 20 billion yen ($194 million). This Toyota- Panasonic joint venture will work towards the increase of lithium-ion battery output capacity to 200,000 units per year, which will be about 6 times of what Toyota process right now.

A Toyota spokesperson, Ryo Sakai has confirmed these developments as he said that the company has taken into consideration the increased demand for lithium-ion batteries, and to cater to this demand the joint venture of the two companies (Toyota and Panasonic) is considering increasing the production of the lithium-ion batteries at the Omori plant.

The Toyota spokesperson revealed only about the production increase of the lithium-ion batteries of the company through the joint venture but chose to keep mum about any other details regarding the company’s intention of using the batteries on which particular flagships. Thus, it is yet not confirmed whether or not Toyota is really considering on using lithium-ion batteries on the next generation Prius hybrid cars.

Last month, the Japanese car maker had announced that it has sold more than 5 million of its gasoline-electric hybrid cars as on the end of the month of March since the cars first went on sale in the year 1997.
The Toyota Prius model series accounted for around 70 percent of this announced sales, which makes the brand the most popular hybrid car in the automotive sector.

Toyota sold 1.2 million hybrid cars globally in 2012, which was the first time the company sold more than 1 million hybrids in a year.

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