Toyota Pledges $10 Billion Additional Investment in US, Launches Battery Plant in North Carolina
TOKYO: Japanese automaker Toyota announced on Thursday that it will invest an additional $10 billion in the United States over the next five years, confirming earlier remarks by former US President Donald Trump during a visit to Asia.
The investment will bring Toyota’s total US expenditure to nearly $60 billion since it began operations in the country almost 70 years ago. The announcement coincides with the opening of the company’s first US factory producing lithium-ion batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles in North Carolina.
The North Carolina facility is Toyota’s eleventh manufacturing plant in the United States, representing an investment of nearly $14 billion and expected to create up to 5,100 jobs.
Earlier, Trump had said Toyota would spend $10 billion to build new plants across several states, though the company initially described the figure as “difficult to confirm.”
The investment forms part of broader efforts under a July agreement in which Japan committed to invest $550 billion in the US economy and lower tariffs on vehicles to 15 percent, down from a previously threatened 25 percent.
Toyota also signalled readiness to export US-made vehicles to Japan if harmonisation of certification standards between the two countries is achieved. Currently, about half of Toyota’s US sales are imported, primarily from Canada and Mexico, with roughly 281,000 vehicles imported from Japan last year.
By RSS/AFP
