Well Tesla (TSLA) certainly seems to be making friends in all the right places, Panasonic announced today that it is investing $30 million in Tesla Motors through a stock purchase program, Panasonic (PC) currently supplies and collaborates with Tesla on lithium-ion battery development. Panasonic’s subsidiary Sanyo is currently the largest manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries in the world.

Analysts have predicted that the market for lithium-ion batteries in electric and hybrid vehicles will increase 40 fold over the next 5 years, this puts Panasonic in an incredibly promising position to capitalise on the meteoric rise of the electric car. Panasonic announced earlier this year that they were in talks with over 20 automakers about battery supply deals.

Toyota bought a $50 million stake in Tesla earlier this year and Daimler-Benz bought a whopping 10% stake in early 2009, Tesla seem to have a habit of pulling huge amounts of investment capital from companies it collaborates with, some have suggested that Tesla consulting wing will make considerably more money that its actual car production but only time will tell.

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