Automotive giant Toyota has taken a historic step in its electric vehicle strategy, opening its first battery factory outside Japan in the United States.

Toyota Opens Massive Battery Factory

Production at this new facility, built with a massive investment of $13.9 billion, has officially begun in Liberty, North Carolina. The company describes this development as a milestone in its history. The newly opened factory is Toyota’s eleventh facility in the US and its first battery production center outside of Japan.

Toyota announced its plan to produce batteries in the US approximately four years ago. This major investment, worth approximately $14 billion, will create up to 5,100 new jobs in the region. The company also announced plans to invest an additional $10 billion in its US operations over the next five years.

The new facility, situated on 1,850 acres (approximately the size of 121 football fields), will be capable of producing batteries with an annual capacity of up to 30 GWh. The batteries produced at this plant will power Toyota’s new Camry HEV, Corolla Cross HEV, and RAV4 HEV models, as well as its three-row electric SUV, which has not yet been officially launched.

The plant currently has fourteen production lines, but Toyota aims to increase this number by 2030. The company is already shipping HEV (hybrid) modules produced at this new facility in North Carolina to its factory in Kentucky and to a joint Mazda-Toyota facility in Alabama. Toyota currently assembles eleven different hybrid and plug-in hybrid models in the US.

The company currently has only two fully electric models in the US market—the bZ SUV and the Lexus RZ. However, Toyota plans to launch new BEV (fully electric vehicle) models such as the CH-R and bZ Woodland in the coming months. It has also been reported that Toyota has postponed the opening of a facility in Japan that was planned to produce next-generation electric vehicle batteries.