Nissan Motor Co. is unveiling plans for a second car battery factory, betting that demand for electric vehicles will justify the investment in additional capacity.
Envision AESC and Nissan will jointly operate the plant, to be built in Ibaraki prefecture north of Tokyo with an initial investment of 50 billion yen ($456 million) and an annual production capacity of six gigawatt-hours in 2023, according to a document. The plans, to be announced next week, including spending as much as 100 billion yen and boosting output to 18 gigawatt-hours after about five years, or roughly enough for 163,000 Nissan Leaf electric vehicles.
Last month, Nissan and Envision AESC unveiled plans to create a 1-billion-pound ($1.4 billion) EV-manufacturing hub in Britain. Automakers globally have struck several deals this year to add battery-manufacturing capacity as they seek to shift away from gasoline-burning engines. Ford Motor Co. and South Korea’s SK Innovation Co. are building electric-vehicle batteries at two factories in the U.S., while Volkswagen AG has committed $29 billion to challenge Tesla Inc.
