Toyota to invest additional 10 B. dollars in US
Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday that it will invest an additional 10 billion dollars in the United States over the next five years to strengthen its production of electrified vehicles.
The announcement came at an opening ceremony of the company's plant in North Carolina to make batteries for automobiles.
After a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in late October, US President Donald Trump said, "Toyota is going to be putting auto plants all over the United States to the tune of over 10 billion dollars."
With the additional investment, Toyota now aims to further localise production of electrified vehicles, such as hybrid and electric vehicles.
The facility in North Carolina is Toyota's first in-house battery manufacturing plant outside Japan, with an annual production capacity of 30 gigawatt-hours, enough for some 300,000 units of average-sized EVs in the United States.
The ceremony was attended by Tetsuo Ogawa, president and CEO of Toyota Motor North America Inc., as well as US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, among others.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
