Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corporation announced it has completed construction of a new electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing plant in Liberty, in the US state of North Carolina, with shipments scheduled to start in April 2025.
The plant is owned and operated by Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina (TBMNC) Inc, in which Toyota Motor North America Inc (TMNA) has a 90% stake and Toyota Tsusho Corporation holds a 10% stake. It is Toyota’s first in-house EV battery plant outside Japan and its eleventh in-house manufacturing facility in the US.
With total investments of close to US$14bn, the plant is expected to employ 5,000 people at full capacity – producing lithium-ion batteries for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
Toyota has vehicle assembly plants in several US states, including Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas, along with production facilities in Canada and Mexico. The company sold 2.73 million vehicles in North America last year, including 2.33 million in the US. Vehicle production in the region amounted to 2.05 million units, including 1.27 million in the US.
Toyota confirmed it has invested a total of US$49bn in the US to date, which it says “supports more than 280,000 jobs in the industry”.
