PPES—the joint venture between Panasonic Corporation and Toyota Motor Corporation—and Nexeon, the company developing advanced silicon materials for next generation lithium-ion batteries, have agreed to extend their funded joint development agreement (JDA). The partners will focus their work on the commercialization of e-mobility applications of lithium-ion batteries.

Nexeon and PPES, for Prime Planet Energy & Solutions, set up their JDA in January this year, and through that process have recognized the potential for Nexeon’s silicon material to increase the energy density of Li-ion batteries.

Silicon materials are important for PPES, and are a key component in achieving new battery designs. To improve battery performance, the partners need to understand how the materials would behave in assembled batteries, so the collaboration between PPES and Nexeon is an ideal partnership to accelerate the development. Each of the partners has expertise in manufacturing as well as research and development.

The JDA allows the partners to respond to opportunities from automotive manufacturers seeking to achieve next-generation performance.

We are very pleased to confirm our working arrangement with our prestigious partners. The complementary skills of the teams are an important asset, enabling us to address some of the most pressing problems in e-mobility.

—Dr Scott Brown, CEO of Nexeon

We are keen to renew our JDA, which is proving very productive in creating solutions to real world problems. We recognize that high performance batteries are key to the advancement of electric and hybrid vehicles, and their contribution to sustainable mobility.

—Hiroyuki Akita, General Manager at PPES