Toyota Motor Corp. plans to invest $1.4 billion in a factory in Indiana to increase production and sales of electric vehicles in the United States, the Japanese automaker's second similar announcement this year.
The company's Princeton, Indiana, plant, which currently produces four gasoline and hybrid models, will add an unnamed all-electric three-row SUV to its lineup, the company said in a statement Thursday. This follows Toyota's announcement in February that it plans to spend $1.3 billion to build a separate three-row all-electric SUV at a factory in Kentucky.
Both vehicles will use lithium-ion batteries supplied by the automaker's new plant in North Carolina, which is scheduled to begin production in 2025.
Toyota has been slower to adopt EVs than other major automakers, opting to expand by selling popular hybrid, gasoline and electric models. The decision to manufacture EVs in the US is part of an effort to maintain compliance with increasingly stringent US emissions standards. Toyota also wants to remain competitive with rival EVs, which benefit from U.S. government subsidies favoring local production.
The company currently sells two EVs in the United States, the bZ4X and the Lexus RZ 450e, both of which are manufactured in Japan. Hybrid vehicles accounted for about 29% of Toyota's U.S. sales last year, but EV deliveries are sluggish due to sluggish global demand. The automaker didn't just stumble with the launch of his bZ4X. The vehicle was temporarily withdrawn from the market after its launch in 2022 due to a defect that could cause the wheels to fall off.
