Panasonic’s big news coming out at CES 2022

Panasonic North America’s CEO Megan Myungwon Lee sat down with Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley to discuss what to expect from Panasonic at CES 2022, the company’s developments in the automotive industry, and how they are tackling supply chain shortages.

Video Transcript

DAN HOWLEY: This is Yahoo Finance's coverage of CES 2020 presented by Verizon. I'm Dan Howley. And we're here with Panasonic CEO of North America Megan Lee. Megan, thank you so much for joining us. Obviously, CES 2022, kind of a big change than what we're normally used to.

Originally, it was supposed to be sort of physical and then virtual. And now it's just essentially largely virtual at this point. But I just want to kind of get your thoughts going into CES, what Panasonic's biggest announcements were for this year's show, and what you're looking forward to most.

MEGAN MYUNGWON LEE: Thank you for inviting me. We're very excited to be part of CES again. And like you said, more virtually. But we do have physical presence that those of you who are already there, please go visit our booth. We have great immersive entertainment showcase that should be a lot of fun. So that's one area that we're showcasing.

The other part that we're really excited to show is you mentioned automotive. We are, in US, number eight tier one supplier and globally 15. And we have a lot of exciting going on in automotive areas. Number one, we're announcing AR HUD 2.0 with eye tracking system, which is really exciting. And the second is I talked about immersive theater-like entertainment system that we're partnering with Area 15.

And we also, of course, are showcasing a lot of consumer electronics products. That's part of our DNA. And last but not least, we're also showing the partnership that we have with the Olympian, the legend, swimmer Katie Ledecky about STEM education. We feel very strongly about giving back to the community. So those are the outline of our CES 2022.

DAN HOWLEY: I want to focus on the HUD for a second, which is basically a heads-up display for vehicles. It'll show things like directions or if someone is in front of you that you may or may not be able to easily see, such as bikers in traffic or something like that. Where do you see that going as far as the future for the HUD? And when do you think something like this will be available for the average consumer?

MEGAN MYUNGWON LEE: So we're showcasing in addition to what we showed last year. This year, we're introducing the eye tracking system. That's really interesting. And what it does is-- what I try to understand is, I try to put myself as an average consumer and really try to understand the technology.

So what it really does is, when you sit in your driver's seat, it adjusts for your height. And it also monitors your movement. So it adjusts your height. And then it optimizes your optical path. And then it auto-focus for you. And then it also senses your movement to make sure that your safety is ensured.

We're partnering with a company called Phiar. It's a startup based in LA. And we're very excited about it. And we're hoping to show it to the average consumer very soon.

DAN HOWLEY: And I guess when you look past-- and you talk about the work that you're doing with Katie Ledecky and STEM. What is Panasonic specifically bringing to the table there? And is it part of the need for more people working in STEM? How is that playing out?

MEGAN MYUNGWON LEE: So Panasonic, with our 100-plus years of history, in US, we're here for more than 60 years. And as part of long-term strategy is make sure that we grow with the everyday consumer and as a company, and we continue to give back to the society and stay relevant.

What we feel strongly about for Panasonic and also Panasonic foundation-- and that's why it was a perfect partnership with Katie Ledecky-- is the STEM education is really more and more important. 79% of new jobs since 1990 was from STEM-based, where only 34% job creation is for any other jobs. So we feel very strongly about it.

And also, we're a technology company. So all that investment that we can make will grow up to be part of our employment. And we can grow with the young talent together as a company. So we're really, really excited about it. And Katie Ledecky is just wonderful to work with.

DAN HOWLEY: We've just been discussing the chip shortage all year. Well, 2021, last year. We'll discuss it, I'm sure, well into 2022. But I guess for your CES plans and for how you're able to kind of understand your product cycle and your product line, how has that impacted Panasonic? And how are you kind of working around that?

MEGAN MYUNGWON LEE: Right. So as if a pandemic was not hard enough, we're hit with so many different challenges, including the parts supply issues and supply chain management. So we're trying to manage it. And there are several things that we're trying to do.

Ensuring the customer, that we support the customer is the priority for us. And sometimes, for different businesses, we had to make the investment of buying more supplies than we usually have to have. So that's one thing we tried to do.

Another area that we're really excited about is we acquired Blue Yonder. It is about autonomous supply chain management. So that's also part that we're not only offering that as a business. That should help our company as Panasonic Global as well. That's really exciting.

Another supply chain issue that we're trying to monitor is Panasonic is big in sustainability. And one of our larger business is EV battery. We have a factory up in Reno. It's a young company. It's only five, six years old. And I get really excited when I talk about that, because I remember when I used to visit that location with the trailers. And now we have 4,500 employees producing 2 billion batteries a year.

And I was talking to Alan Swann, the company president of that unit. And he said it's 60 batteries a second. Imagine that, right? And with that business, we're also partnering with Redwood Material on domestic supply, circular supply chain. So that's also something that we're doing as well.

DAN HOWLEY: Well, thank you so much, Megan Lee, Panasonic's CEO of North America. We really appreciate your time.

MEGAN MYUNGWON LEE: Of course. Thank you so much.