When other automakers are rushing to build plants to produce electric cars and their batteries, Toyota has decided to inject cash into internal combustion engine (ICE) production.
Today, Toyota announced an investment of $383 million into its US plants to further increase production of ICE engines. The engines are destined for Toyota and Lexus models, including both gasoline-only and hybrid vehicles.
According to Toyota, there’s still room for four-cylinder combustion engines before the transition to electric vehicles is completed, with that in mind, the company is planning to split the investment across four plants in the country.
The Huntsville, Alabama plant will get the lions share of $222 million. It will go into expanding the factory by 114,000 square feet to make room for a new production line of the 4 cylinder engines.
The plant in Troy, Missouri, will get $109 million followed by the site in Jackson, Tennessee, which will receive $36 million and finally the one in Georgetown, Kentucky, will get $16 million.
Despite this fresh investment, Toyota is still keen on electric cars and their batteries. In fact, in October 2021, Toyota announced a $3.4 billion investment to construct a dedicated battery plant in the US that will employ 1,750 people. The automaker didn’t specify the planned location of this factory, however, it confirmed that production of batteries should begin in 2025. The brand has also gone further and released a fully electric car series called Beyond Zero illustrated as bZ and its first car, the bZ4X SUV, has already been unveiled. A lexus version based on the same SUV is also on the works.