【Text by Observer Net, Pan Yuchen, Editor by Gao Xin】According to Reuters, Toyota Motor announced on November 12 local time that its $1.39 billion battery plant in North Carolina, USA, has started production to meet the increased demand for hybrid vehicles, and confirmed a plan to invest $10 billion in American manufacturing within five years.

In December 2021, Toyota first announced plans to build a factory to produce batteries for its new energy vehicles. This is Toyota's 11th factory in the United States, covering 1,850 acres (approximately 749 hectares), with a maximum annual capacity of 30 GWh, and will have 14 battery production lines for plug-in hybrid and pure electric vehicles. It will employ 5,000 workers, producing hybrid power batteries for the Kentucky factory and the Toyota-Mazda joint venture in Alabama. The factory will provide power batteries for the Camry, Corolla Cross, RAV4, and an as-yet-unannounced three-row hybrid SUV.

Spectrum News, Toyota's North Carolina Plant

Ted Ogawa, President of Toyota Motors North America, stated that Toyota is committed to multiple approaches to energy transition, offering consumers energy-efficient gasoline cars, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, electric, and fuel cell vehicles. Currently, Toyota mainly converts its best-selling gasoline models into hybrid models.

Ogawa also said that in the next five years, Toyota plans to invest another $1 billion in the United States, bringing total investments to over $6 billion, to further increase production capacity.

In October this year, US President Trump said during his visit to Japan that Toyota planned to invest $1 billion in the United States, but this was once denied by Toyota. Previously, Trump had criticized Japan for exporting a large number of cars to the US, and since April this year, he imposed high tariffs on imported cars.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated that the US government plans to soon relax fuel economy standards, saying the previous regulations were too aggressive. In January this year, Duffy signed an executive order directing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to revoke the fuel economy standards set by former President Biden for model years 2022-2031. These standards aimed to significantly reduce vehicle and truck fuel use to encourage the sale of electric vehicles. Additionally, since September this year, tax credits for purchasing electric vehicles in the US have been canceled.

Interestingly, other automakers such as Volkswagen have also stated that due to the Trump administration canceling tax credits for electric vehicles and removing penalties for fuel-efficient cars, they will also introduce more hybrid models in the US market.

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