Toyota and Panasonic established a joint venture with the goal of investing in research and development in the automotive prismatic battery business in an effort to advance vehicle electrification technology and help solve environmental issues.

The scope of the joint venture's business operations will cover research, development, production engineering, manufacturing, procurement, order receipt, and more with relation to prismatic lithium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries, and next-generation batteries, Toyota said in a release.

The automaker will transfer equipment and personnel to the joint venture in the areas of development and production engineering related to battery cells. Panasonic will also transfer equipment, other assets, liabilities, personnel, and other items to the joint venture in the areas of development, production engineering, manufacturing , procurement, order receipt, and management functions related to the automotive prismatic battery business.

Toyota and Panasonic will share their production-engineering resources and manufacturing knowledge and to also, among other efforts, leverage merits of scale related to procurement and manufacturing costs.

Toyota will own 51% of the venture while Panasonic will hold the other 49%, according to a release from Toyota.