Toyota Highlander factory received 1.4 billion USD to produce new battery packs and electric vehicles
A week after one xebuzz report that thing Toyota plans to expand PHEV availability in the US market and may offer electric vehicles Toyota Highlander next time, Automotive news report Toyota pledged to invest $1.4 billion at its Princeton, Indiana factory to build its current vehicle line highland people, Dai Tay Nguyen, Sienna small trucks and Lexus TX is a luxury version of the Grand Highlander. The money will pay for three items at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana (TMMI), the first being the assembly of “an electric vehicle on the line that currently produces the Sienna and Highlander” starting in 2026. Toyota executives told the news agency that the electric vehicle being produced in question will be “chassis-based,” except using a skateboard architecture.
The second thing that money pays for is battery package assembly line. The batteries will come from Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina (TBNMC), a joint venture with longtime Toyota partner Panasonic, which is expected to begin production in 2025.
A Toyota representative told AN that there will currently be no changes to vehicle nameplates provided by TMMI and new car does not require increasing the capacity of the line to be built on it. The automaker said the production capacity at TMMI is more than 420,000 vehicles per year. None of this confirms an electric Highlander will be on the market around the 2026 model year, but it does rule out anything from the new generation of electric vehicles that Toyota has been teasing and hinting at for several years. this year. If and when the electric Highlander arrives, expect a Lexus TZ to follow, which the automaker already has Applies to brands TZ450e and TZ550e.
The third line item in the budget is 340 new employees for TMMI, adding to the more than 7,500 workers already working there.
Anything that comes from Indiana is separate from New electric car Toyota is about to produce at the Georgetown, Kentucky (TMMK) plant. ONE said the vehicle will be called the bZ5X, a three-row EV SUV that is smaller than the three-row EV SUV that was dropped from TMMI. This factory will also build its own packs, but the cells for these packs are said to come from a new factory that LG Energy Systems is building in Holland, Michigan. Toyota recently contributed $3 billion to expand that facility to ensure 250 gigawatt hours worth of battery output per year, said to be enough for about 250,000 electric vehicles. That facility will also be operational in 2025.
