Panasonic to Supply Batteries for Zoox

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Zoox, the robotaxi startup owned by Amazon, has expanded a bit recently, and it is ready to scale up enough that it has secured an EV battery supplier for more EV production.

Starting in early 2026, Zoox will be receiving batteries from Panasonic Energy. It will be using 2170 cylindrical batteries from the Japanese battery producer that was once Tesla’s exclusive battery supplier (and still supplies some of Tesla’s batteries).

The cells will initially come from Japan, but the plan is to eventually produce them in Kansas. Note that while the Trump administration has killed all of the EV subsidies for consumers, it has not (yet) touched the battery production tax credits Democrats and President Joe Biden passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Those include tax credits for producing battery cells as well as battery packs (and also battery mineral mining and processing if a company engages in those activities in the USA).

Note that Zoox recently started operating robotaxis in San Francisco, joining Waymo as the second robotaxi operator in The Golden City (unless you also count Cruise, which used to operate robotaxis there but no longer does).

The company was also “issued an exemption for Zoox driverless vehicles under its newly expanded Automated Vehicle Exemption Program” a few months ago by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “This is the first-ever exemption for American-built vehicles under the program.”

Is Zoox ready for primetime? I don’t know about that, but it’s clearly growing and expanding. Let’s see how much it can spread its wings in 2026.