Toyota has already planned to open a battery plant in North Carolina by around 2025, which will allow it to make EVs entirely in the country, from the production of key components to the final assembly.

It had previously said it would invest up to ¥870 billion in Japan and the US to manufacture batteries.

Toyota is aiming to produce about 200,000 EVs in the US annually from 2026 onward, as part of its plan to supply one million EVs, or around 10% of its total sales, globally by that time.

The automaker has said it will make EVs in Japan, China and India.

The EVs it will manufacture in the US will be sport utility vehicles.

It will initially make 1,000 units per month, before expanding to 10,000 units by the end of 2025.

These production plans were recently unveiled to Toyota suppliers as part of a broader production blueprint for 2023-25.

Despite being the world’s largest automaker, Toyata produced just 24,000 EVs worldwide under its own and Lexus brands in 2022, compared with the 1.31 million units Tesla sold.

Overall, Toyota produced nine million vehicles in 2022.

Toyota hopes that its US plans show that it is committed to manufacturing EVs on a global scale.