Japanese legacy automaker Toyota has just announced plans to officially start electric vehicle battery production at its upcoming factory in North Carolina in 2025, Automotive News reports, citing an executive.
Toyota’s new $13.9B battery complex to launch operations next year
Last week, Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina President Sean Suggs provided the Detroit-based newspaper with an exclusive tour of the North Carolina complex.
The company executive revealed that Toyota aims to start producing the necessary battery packs for its hybrids, plugin hybrids, and battery-electric vehicle models at its currently under-construction factory in North Carolina as early as next year. Toyota plans to use the new EV batteries for the electric vehicles it will sell in Q1 2025.
The first batch of salable batteries will reportedly arrive in a “three-row” electric vehicle that will undergo assembly in Georgetown, Kentucky.
“Things are progressing really, really nicely. We’re in the heat of trial activity as we speak, doing trial activity in our first building. We’ve got about 300 team members that are on-site each day; the rest of them [around 500] are in our headquarters location in Greensboro.”
Sean Suggs, Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina President
In hindsight, Toyota boosted its investment into the project to a whopping $13.9 billion in 2023. Construction has progressed at the site since its groundbreaking ceremony in late 2022.
About the factory
Toyota will soon erect its new electric vehicle battery complex at a 1,800-acre site just over 20 miles from downtown Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Japanese automaker allots seven facilities for battery production, with two manufacturing lines planned for each. According to the report, ten lines will focus on EV and PHEV battery production, while the other four will build batteries for HEV models.
The complex will also have an on-site supplier facility. Toyota’s partner, Fuji Springs, will produce the “cans” of the battery cells and other key components.
At full capacity, the upcoming battery complex will have an annual production capacity of up to 30 gigawatt-hours for Toyota and Lexus EVs. It is also expected to generate approximately 5,100 new job opportunities.
Toyota will continue to develop the battery complex until at least late 2027 or early 2028, as per President Suggs.
“Not anti-EV”
The latest update about the local factory development comes as electric vehicle advocates continue to criticize Toyota for not fully committing to an all-electric future.
In March 2024, Toyota Motor North America CEO Ted Ogawa even said that going all-in on electric vehicles could be a “wasted investment.”
However, Toyota contended that the automaker was not “anti-EV,” as critics believed. Last February, a Toyota Australia executive explained the reason behind the Japanese company’s strong commitment to hybrids.
“Toyota’s not anti-EV. We’re actually not. And we want to play in that market. We want to be part of it. We’re excited by it. We just don’t see it as the golden bullet or the single golden bullet towards carbon neutrality. The multi-pathway is still our strategy, but we’re excited to be coming into the BEV market. We know it plays a role.”
Sean Hanley, Toyota Australia VP of Sales and Marketing
Going back to the North Carolina project, Toyota has launched a hiring and training hub in Greensboro to assess prospective applicants at the upcoming battery complex. Once accepted, future workers must undergo about ten weeks of relevant training before Toyota assigns them to one of the buildings.
On its official Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina website, the company displays that it is “committed to using 100% renewable energy” under its wider efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
