Toyota reportedly constructing battery plant for Lexus

• A brand new Toyota battery plant is reportedly within the works
• The Japanese plant would make batteries for Lexus EVs
• Toyota is constructing a battery plant in North Carolina as well

Toyota plans to construct a Japanese EV battery plant for its Lexus luxury brand, the Nikkei business each day reported Friday.

Circulated by Reuters, the report said the brand new battery plant can be situated in Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Fukuoka, but didn’t provide every other details. Toyota views Kyushu, the island where Fukuoka is situated, as a central hub for its EV supply chain, in line with the report.

This report comes as other automakers pull back EV production targets. EV output is 45% below expectations, French supplier OPmobility SE said this week. General Motors recently announced that it could delay a goal to have production capability for a million EVs, originally targeted for 2025, while Ford is re-tasking a Canadian assembly plant from EVs to internal-combustion Super Duty pickup trucks.

Toyota in 2023 said it could transform Lexus “right into a battery EV brand” by 2035, but there could also be some flexibility within the steepness of the ramp to that goal. Other luxury brands, including Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche, have recently discussed keeping combustion models in production into the following decade on the strategy to an all-electric future. And Toyota in 2021 indicated 85% of its U.S. vehicles would still have tail pipes in 2030.

2024 Lexus RZ

While it has shown some striking concepts, the one Lexus EV currently sold within the U.S. is the RZ crossover, which tests the electrical waters but is not a mass-market effort. Lexus added a less-expensive, longer-range version of the RZ for the 2024 model 12 months called the RZ 300e with as much as 266 miles of range, in comparison with a maximum 220 miles for the initial RZ 450e variant.

A Toyota battery plant in North Carolina is slated to begin constructing cells for hybrids and EVs in 2025. The automaker has already announced a $2.5 billion expansion of that plant, which continues to be under construction, that will likely be used specifically so as to add capability for EV battery production. Toyota also confirmed two three-row electric SUVs for U.S. production in 2025 and 2026.