Auto giant Toyota is planning to spend $3.4B in the United States over the next 10 years to develop facilities to make automotive batteries, including those for hybrid vehicles as well as fully electric cars.
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The company didn't announce the location of any future facilities but did say that it will spend almost $1.3B by 2025 to start production at one such factory. The funds will be used in part to develop land and build the factory. After it opens, the facility will employ 1,750 workers.
To facilitate the development, Toyota Motor North America will establish a new company and build the battery plant in the U.S. in partnership with Toyota Tsusho, the trading arm of the Toyota Group.
The development will be part of a push by the automaker to increase production of hybrids and electric vehicles. So far, Toyota has sold more than 18.7 million hybrids and EVs worldwide, including over 4.5 million in the U.S. Such vehicles account for 25% of Toyota’s U.S. sales volume, a number that the company says will rise to nearly 70% by 2030.
Changes that could potentially be wrought by increasing electric vehicle sales include a large increase in public charging stations, such as at retail properties, and a 25% increase in the use of electricity nationwide, The New York Times reports.
Automakers are responding to a boom in demand for EVs. During the first half of 2021, sales of plug-in vehicles more than doubled year-over-year, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing Wards Intelligence data. Total vehicle sales were up 29% during the first half of the year.
Last month, Ford Motor Co. announced plans to build four factories in Tennessee and Kentucky that will produce batteries for electric cars and trucks. The initiative, which will cost $11.4B, is in partnership with South Korean battery cell specialist SK Innovation.
Ford expects as much as half of its global vehicle volume to be made up of EVs by 2030, while General Motors says it will end production of internal combustion vehicles by 2035 as it tries to take EV market share from Tesla, currently the market leader.
