LOS ANGELES: Toyota Motor Corp. is betting Americans are ready for more US-made electric vehicles. And if they aren't, it has a plan: exports.
Production of two American-made all-electric models is slated to begin next year, joining three new imported EVs Toyota aims to have in US showrooms in the coming months and two currently available.
By mid-2027, a total of seven EVs will be showing up in its US dealerships.
The new battery-powered cars will help fulfill the company's pledge to offer an electrified option for every model it makes globally by this year.
So far, just under 80% of Toyota and its Lexus brand models sold in the US offer a hybrid or fully electric powertrain.
Toyota typically doesn't add a model to a plant unless it's confident it can sell 100,000 to 150,000 units a year once production fully ramps up.
Company executives say they expect slow but steady growth in US EV sales. At the same time, faster adoption in overseas markets offers an outlet for any US production in excess of domestic demand.
"We'll sell a little bit more every year and grow with the market," Cooper Ericksen, a senior vice president in charge of planning and strategy at Toyota Motor North America, said in an interview.
"But we have to think about how many Canada will use, how many the US will use, and we can then export to other global destinations."
That's assuming President's Donald Trump's tariffs don't upend the US auto market and spur a retaliatory trade war.
The Japanese automaker is on track to start shipping lithium-ion batteries later this year from a massive plant in the rural town of Liberty, North Carolina, that sprawls over 1,850 acres.
Of that facility's 14 production lines, 10 are dedicated to electric vehicle battery cells with the remainder going to hybrid batteries.
It will supply cells earmarked for use in the two US-made EVs.
The battery factory's first hybrid battery line is expected to be operational next month and the others will be brought online through 2034, the company said.
It aims for production greater than 30 gigawatt hours at full capacity, or the equivalent of 800,000 hybrid, 150,000 plug-in hybrid and 300,000 all-electric vehicle batteries.
Total EV sales rose 7.3% in the US last year to some 1.3 million vehicles, according to Cox Automotive's Kelly Blue Book.
But Toyota delivered fewer than 30,000 all-electric in the US in 2024, even as its sales of hybrid gas-electrics skyrocketed.
The Japanese carmaker has been slower to jump on the EV bandwagon than most of its global rivals.
It emerged as one of the biggest critics of policies designed to hasten EV adoption in the US and has called on American policymakers to allow the market to dictate demand.
But Toyota is also reluctant to cede a market currently representing about 8% of US sales to rivals such as General Motors Co., Tesla Inc., and Hyundai Motor Co.
The company expects battery electrics' share of the American market to nearly double by 2030.
"BEVs right now aren't incremental volume for us; They're cannibalizing our volume," said Ericksen. "But in the future, we think it's a really important segment that we don't want to give up to the competition."
In addition to the all-electric bZ4X - which soon will be renamed the bZ - and Lexus RZ which it sells now, Toyota will add three more import EV models next year: The bZ Woodland, CH-R crossover and a version of the Lexus ES sedan.
Toyota's factory in Georgetown, Kentucky - its largest plant globally - currently manufactures some 550,000 vehicles annually, including top-selling models such as the RAV4 small SUV, Camry sedan and Lexus ES.
The Camry went all-hybrid last year and the RAV4 will stop offering a gasoline-only version in its next model year.
Toyota hasn't disclosed the name of the all-electric model that will made there.
Similarly, it hasn't provided details about the EV that will join larger models such as its Highlander SUV, Grand Highlander SUV and Sienna minivan that are made at its Princeton, Indiana, factory, which produced nearly 330,000 vehicles last year.
