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Four years and nearly $14 billion after construction began in 2021, Toyota announced on Nov. 12 that its massive 7-million-square-foot lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility in Liberty, North Carolina, has entered production, and that it will invest an additional $10 billion over the next five years in U.S. manufacturing facilities.
The facility on 1,850 acres in rural Randolph County, about 20 miles southeast of Greensboro, is Toyota’s first battery production facility outside of Japan, the company said. It has 14 total battery production lines, including 10 battery electric vehicle (EV) lines and four hybrid electric vehicle lines, and Toyota said it will add more production lines at the Liberty battery plant by the year 2030.
The battery plant already employs more than 1,200 people, and employment is expected to increase to 5,100 jobs when running at full capacity.
“Toyota is a pioneer in electrified vehicles, and the company’s significant manufacturing investment in the U.S. and North Carolina further solidifies our commitment to team members, customers, dealers, communities, and suppliers,” said Ted Ogawa, president and CEO of Toyota Motor North America.
The Liberty facility will produce lithium-ion batteries for Toyota’s lineup of electric vehicles, including hybrid-electric Camrys, Corollas, and RAV4s, and a new all-electric three-row sports utility vehicle that’s yet to be announced but will be built in the United States. The battery plant can produce as much as 30 gigawatts annually and will ship batteries to Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Georgetown, Kentucky, and Mazda Toyota Manufacturing in Greenbrier, Alabama.
The facility is expected to have a significant economic impact on the state’s Piedmont Triad region, which includes the cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point. Toyota’s $13.9 billion investment is the largest corporate investment in the state’s history, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein said on X.
“This groundbreaking investment will create more than 5,000 new jobs for North Carolinians and will strengthen our commitment to leading the way in both the automotive supply chain and the clean energy economy,” Stein said.
Toyota also announced it will commit an additional $10 billion in capital investment over the next five years in other U.S. manufacturing facilities. The investments come amid President Donald Trump’s continued efforts to strengthen the country’s manufacturing sector.
“Toyota’s move to expand production in North Carolina is the latest show of confidence in this administration’s efforts to reshore manufacturing, generate new, great paying jobs, and inject billions of dollars into the economy,” Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said.
Toyota’s investments also underscore its push to claim a larger share of the domestic EV market. According to automotive website Edmunds, Toyota’s share of the U.S. electric vehicle market in 2024 was just 1.5 percent.
Toyota Motor North America reported sales of 282,794 new electrified vehicles in the third quarter, which was nearly 45 percent of total sales volume for the quarter. This category includes all-electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and non-plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
The company’s electrified vehicle sales spiked in September to more than 85,000 vehicles, and its Lexus division added another 8,896 electrified vehicles.
Sales of all-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles spiked in the third quarter as consumers scrambled to use a $7,500 tax credit that ended on Sept. 30.
