Panasonic teams up with Norwegian firms for Europe battery business

I'm sad to see Panasonic abandoning so many consumer goods lines in favor of batteries and solar technology. I'v always had great service from our many Panasonic appliances and audio equipment but in many areas they have abandoned the field to cheaper and less well made Chinese kludge.

Panasonic and its Japanese peers were unable to read the runes over digitalisation, which greatly reduced barriers to entry into the industry. It also failed to heed how Samsung and (then) Lucky Goldstar were building capability, scale and loyalty in developing markets. Finally the industry in general, despite dispatching legions of managers to overseas factories and branches, thought their paternalistic 'make it and they will buy' attitude to consumers could still work in the internet era, and failed to effectively engage with and learn from users.

The partnership mentioned in this article has the potential to do a lot of good on the world stage. Panasonic working with Equinor (formerly Statoil, or State Oil), and Norsk Hydro, can use the resources of Norway's sovereign wealth fund (the largest in the world), to great effect. This collaboration can help move the electric vehicle trend in that part of the world to the next level. Bravo.

 thought their paternalistic 'make it and they will buy' attitude to consumers could still work in the internet era,

Not sure it that's the whole story. In the US people now seem to default to buying whatever has the lowest price. Panasonic items we own are high quality and there is no way to make them as cheaply as the low quality kludge pumped out of Chinese factories. But American consumers by and large are no longer willing to pay a little more for higher quality. Those who are, like myself, are few and far between. For the great majority of consumers it is lowest price or nothing. This trend has also driven the Electrolux Group out of the US market (they sold Eureka and Sanitaire and no longer sell anything under their own name, were trying to sell their US factory too).

Example, there are dozens of cheap Chinese made robot vacuums on the market for $100 US or less. But they are horrible. They are round and don't clean corners. No replacement parts, filters or brushes, use and throw away. So we bought a Panasonic Rulo from Japan. It has features nobody else's robot has (such as being triangular so it can rotate into corners, very clever), is well made and ought to be quite durable. Parts are abundant from places like Denkiti and Useful Store (just love that name). But I paid six times as much as the Chinese kludge plus the cost of a 100 volt converter for the charging station (also Japanese, from Nissyo). The best Korean (but made in Vietnam) robots are similarly expensive btw as is Miele's Korean made robot and the Chinese made Roombas. Most consumers won't pay that much for quality. Amazon or Walmart will pedal 100 cheap Chinese robots for every high end one from Miele (really isn't that good either), Samsung or Panasonic. This I think explains Panasonic's exit from consumer goods. They could not bring themselves down to the level of the Chinese.

The partnership mentioned in this article has the potential to do a lot of good on the world stage. Panasonic working with Equinor (formerly Statoil, or State Oil), and Norsk Hydro, can use the resources of Norway's sovereign wealth fund (the largest in the world), to great effect. This collaboration can help move the electric vehicle trend in that part of the world to the next level. Bravo

They will have some possibly unfair competition from Geeley owned Volvo. Geeley is going big on electric vehicles and has the resources of the Chinese government behind them.