- Toyota commits up to US$10 billion towards U.S. investment over five years.
- The investment focuses on a major U.S. battery plant in North Carolina and future mobility.
- The move aligns with political pressure and builds on Toyota’s decade-long U.S. investment history.
Toyota Motor Corporation has confirmed it will invest up to US$10 billion (roughly S$13 billion) into its U.S. operations over the next five years, marking a clear response to earlier remarks by Donald Trump during his visit to Tokyo.
The announcement was made as the company celebrated the start of production at its newly built lithium-ion battery plant in Liberty, North Carolina, near Greensboro. While Toyota offered few specifics about exactly how the funds will be allocated, it said the investment will support “future mobility efforts”. The company’s U.S. head, Ted Ogawa, described the project as a “pivotal moment” in the automaker’s history.
This commitment comes amid mounting pressure from the Trump administration on global automakers to shift production into the United States, coupled with the threat of punitive tariffs on imported vehicles and components. Toyota was specifically cited earlier this year for importing too many vehicles into the U.S., particularly from Japan and Mexico.
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Toyota had already promised in 2017 to invest US$13 billion in U.S. manufacturing and states that its total U.S. investment over the past seven decades now exceeds US$50 billion. Roughly half of the vehicles the company sells in the U.S. in 2025 were imported, including around 281,000 units built in Japan.
The North Carolina battery facility alone costs US$13.9 billion to build and is projected to eventually operate 14 production lines, produce more than 30 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity annually, and support more than 5,100 new jobs. Initially, 10 of those lines will serve fully-electric vehicle batteries, while the remainder will support hybrid models such as the Camry, Corolla Cross, and RAV4.
While the investment strengthens Toyota’s U.S. presence and aligns with its electrification strategy, the company noted global EV market demand may soften and highlighted potential overcapacity risks in the U.S. battery industry by 2030.