Toyota Motor announced Monday that it would build a manufacturing plant in US for electric cars and other vehicles, part of about $3.4 billion in battery-related investments to be made in the American market through the end of the decade.
The Japanese automaker will establish a new company for the battery plant with group trading house Toyota Tsusho.
The venture, which will be owned 90% by Toyota, will aim to start production in 2025.
This comes as the Biden administration is calling for a shift to electric vehicles as part of its environmental agenda. Stellantis, which auto brands include Fiat and Chrysler, also announced massive investment in U.S. battery production.
The new site, which is Toyota's first battery plant in the U.S., will hire 1,750 people. Toyota will announce the location and production capacity of the new facility at a later time.
The plant will first make batteries for hybrid vehicles with a view to producing electric-vehicle batteries later.
In September, Toyota said it would invest 1.5 trillion yen in automotive batteries by 2030 globally. The company aims to sell 8 million electric vehicles, with hybrids, by 2030, of which a total of 2 million will be EVs and fuel cell vehicles.
Toyota has put a clear emphasis on keeping battery procurement within its group, partly from the standpoint of quality assurance. The New company is Toyota's three battery-related joint venture, with Toyota Tsusho.
Together with Toyota, Panasonic and Primearth EV Energy founded in 1996 in Japan as a supplier of hybrid-vehicle batteries. In 2020 the two companies launched Prime Planet Energy Solutions, responsible for the manufacture and development of automotive batteries.
With the new venture, Toyota chose a structure that allows the automaker to operate autonomously, said a spokesperson for the company.