Toyota building $192M green-car battery plant

(AP) — Toyota is building a $192 million plant in Japan to produce batteries for gas-electric hybrid vehicles, as it seeks to keep its lead in an intensifying race for green cars among the world’s automakers.

Toyota’s joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, is building the plant in Shizuoka prefecture, in central Japan, Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said Friday.

The plant will produce nickel-metal hydride batteries, now in the company’s hit Prius hybrid.

The Nikkei, Japan’s top business daily, reported Friday that Toyota was building another plant in Japan to make lithium-ion batteries, set to be running by 2010, for future ecological cars. Nolasco said no decision has been made on such a plant.

Physorg