Toyota to build $1.29B US battery plant employing 1,750
By Kathi on Oct 18, 2021 | 04:38 AM IST
Toyota Motor
Corp. plans to invest $3.4 billion in the US through 2030 to establish a
new company and build its first US battery plant, becoming the latest global
automaker to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles through a battery
push.
Production would start in 2025 and at first focus on
batteries for hybrid electric vehicles, creating 1,750 new jobs, the company
said in a statement that didn’t disclose the location or production capacity.
The investment is specifically for battery work and won’t be used to expand
vehicle-assembly capacity, a spokesman said.
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The investment is part of Toyota’s global plan announced last
month to spend 1.5 trillion yen ($13.1 billion) by 2030 on battery development
and production.
The world’s No. 1 automaker expects electric vehicles to
account for nearly 70 percent of its US sales by 2030, up from almost 25
percent currently.
Global automakers have boosted investments in battery
production as they race to take on EV market leader Tesla Inc. Last month, Ford
Motor Co. announced a plan to spend a record $11.4 billion with South Korea’s
SK Innovation Co. to build battery and EV plants in Tennessee and Kentucky.
General Motors Co. also stepped-up investments in electric
and autonomous vehicles in June, with a plan to spend $35 billion by 2025.
By building a new US battery plant, Toyota is pushing for
localization of supply chain and production knowhow. Like other carmakers, its
production has been hit by supply-chain disruptions as factories in key
Southeast Asia region shut down due to Covid-19.
“This investment will help usher in more affordable
electrified vehicles for US consumers, Ted Ogawa, chief executive officer of
Toyota Motor North America, said in a statement. The Japanese automaker’s US
headquarters is in Plano, Texas.
The investment may also help the automaker politically,
with Ogawa saying Toyota’s electrification push is about creating American jobs
while helping the environment and consumers. As the Biden administration pushes
for a sweeping clean-energy agenda, Toyota is among the foreign automakers and
other non-unionized carmakers who have voiced their unease with signs that the
administration favors unionized Detroit carmakers in the race to win over
electric car buyers.
Last month, Toyota said a proposal by US House Democratic lawmakers
to give union-made electric vehicles higher subsidies discriminates “against
American autoworkers based on their choice not to unionize.”
By 2030, Toyota expects to sell 2 million zero-emission
vehicles globally.
The company projects it will sell as many as 1.8 million
electrified vehicles in the US, including zero-emission models.