Toyota on Wednesday announced an additional $2.5 billion investment in its planned battery plant in Liberty, North Carolina, to expand capacity.
Toyota first announced plans for the plant last December, stating at the time it would invest $1.3 billion in the plant's construction to create 1,750 jobs.
With Wednesday's announcement, the total planned investment in the site rises to $3.8 billion. An additional 350 jobs will also be created.
The new plant, which will supply batteries for future plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, is scheduled to begin operation in 2025.
Site of planned Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina (TBMNC) battery plant
Toyota hasn't said what capacity it expects, but the automaker in its December announcement stated the ability to supply batteries for up to 1.2 million hybrid vehicles annually.
“This plant will serve a central role in Toyota’s leadership toward a fully electrified future and will help us meet our goal of carbon neutrality in our vehicles and global operations by 2035,” Norm Bafunno, Toyota Motor North America's head of unit manufacturing and engineering, said in a statement.
The plant investment is part of a wider $70 billion global investment in electrification that Toyota plans for the coming decade. Toyota predicts that by 2030 around 70% of its sales will be electrified vehicles, which includes hybrid vehicles, battery-electric vehicles, and hydrogen-electric vehicles. To meet this target, Toyota plans to offer 70 electrified vehicles by as early as 2025, with 15 of these to be powered by batteries. Of the 15, seven will be from the new BZ family of EVs, the first member of which is the BZ4X compact crossover. The second member is expected to be a BZ3 compact sedan.
Toyota is one of a handful of established automakers planning battery plants in the U.S. to power future EVs. The others include Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai Motor Group, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis.
