In late 2019, a few months before the pandemic upended international travel, Japanese automotive battery chief Hiroaki Koda flew from Tokyo to Buenos Aires, took a three-hour local flight and then drove another four hours to reach a salt lake 4,000 meters up in the Andes mountains.
The flat highland area near the Chilean border is where a vital battery component — lithium — is mined. Koda, the president of Prime Planet Energy & Solutions, a Toyota Motor Corp. and Panasonic Corp. battery joint-venture, was there on a mission: revamp the site’s operations to lower his cost of materials.
He only had one day. The high altitude means staying any longer is tough for newcomers. Still, touring the roughly Seattle-sized mine site, Koda says he found a "treasure trove” of about 100 ways to improve operations — such as adjusting production plans to prevent unused inventory piling up.