NextLab

We believe that the potential for innovation is everywhere. It’s in partnerships, cultural moments and human needs. It’s our job to identify those opportunities and engage them with a century’s worth of digital, analytical and physical capabilities and experience. Creating the scale of change needed to transform our world goes beyond siloed product innovation. So we focus on a holistic approach that includes three core practices: platforms, personalization and partnerships. We see this collaborative ecosystem as the foundation for meeting goals not just in mobility, but in all areas where technology has the power to move us.

NextLab honors and builds upon Panasonic’s more than 100-year legacy of creating better lives and a better world with technology that moves us forward. At NextLab, we look for opportunities in the mobility ecosystem and develop real-world innovations that complement, transcend and create value for our existing Smart Mobility business and its partners. We do this by leveraging a unique combination of digital and physical expertise, never-ending curiosity, and entrepreneurial spirit to create safer, faster, more efficient ways to connect people, devices, vehicles, data and places.

Nothing is more representative of NextLab than the story of our V2X platform, Cirrus. Initially developed in our innovation lab in 2015, Cirrus was inspired by a desire to connect and create value from the rapidly growing amount of data being transmitted by connected cars and intelligent roadway technology. The platform was adopted for a pilot program by the Colorado DOT in 2017. The Colorado trial soon led to phased, scalable relationships with DOTs, including Utah and Georgia. At the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show, it won an Innovation Award while, at the same time, being further deployed to scale in markets across the country.

Another recent success from our mobility innovation team is a 2019 partnership with the Toronto Transit Commission. Together, we launched the largest fleet of eBuses in North America, utilizing EV charging and mobility infrastructure solutions that originated in our innovation labs. Of course, right now we’re engaged in a number of conversations with potential co-partners, from major auto makers and energy suppliers to municipalities, universities and beverage companies, involving hardware and software solutions for everything from what’s next in eFleet sustainability management to hydro-powered municipal bus charging stations.