TOKYO, (Reuters) – Nissan Motor plans to procure batteries for electric vehicles sold in the U.S. from South Korea’s SK On from around 2028 onwards, the Nikkei newspaper said on Thursday, as the troubled Japanese automaker looks to ramp up its EV business as part of a planned turnaround.
Separately, a Nissan executive said the automaker was considering plans to produce compact EVs at its plant on Japan’s southern island Kyushu, confirming a 2024 Reuters report.
Nissan, which is in talks to merge with Honda Motor, has been seeking to slash 9,000 jobs and 20% of its global manufacturing capacity in a turnaround plan laid out last year. Success in that plan would impact how its talks with Honda play out.
The automaker and SK On agreed on the supply of 20 Gigawatt-Hour (GWh) worth of ternary lithium batteries, equivalent to roughly 300,000 standard EVs, the Nikkei said.
A Nissan spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.
On Wednesday, Nissan executive vice president Hideyuki Sakamoto said the company was considering plans to produce compact EVs at its plant on Kyushu island. He also said it is not planning to cut its production capacity in Kyushu as part of the cost-cutting.
“The Kyushu region is also a highly competitive base geopolitically, so we would like to utilise it,” Sakamoto, who is in charge of manufacturing and supply chain management, said.
Sources had told Reuters in last March that Nissan may bring the production of its ultra-compact EVs in-house by making them at its Kyushu factory from the business year starting April 2028, a move that would allow it to boost profit margins.
Nissan and Honda are in talks to merge by 2026, a historic pivot for Japan’s auto industry that underlines the threat Chinese EV makers now pose to the world’s long-dominant legacy car makers.
Reporting by Maki Shiraki and Kantaro Komiya Writing by Daniel Leussink Editing by Chang-Ran Kim
