- Stellantis and battery maker LG Energy Solution are teaming up to build a lithium-ion-battery manufacturing plant in North America that will start operations in early 2024, the automaker announced this morning.
- Separately, Toyota announced today that it will spend $3.4 billion to develop battery production and build hybrid and electric vehicles in the U.S. Toyota will be pairing with Toyota Tsusho on a lithium-ion-battery plant to open by 2025.
- Both moves are another sign of how seriously mainstream automakers are taking the move toward electric vehicles, following recent announcements from Ford and GM about similar investment plans.
Stellantis, parent company of Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, announced this morning that it’s teaming with battery maker LG to produce lithium-ion battery cells and modules in a North American plant. The location was not announced, but the target start date is early 2024, according to the automaker’s statement. The batteries will be used in hybrid and electric vehicles built in North America. Stellantis has previously stated it intends to have 40 percent of its U.S. sales come from EVs by 2030 and has earmarked a total of $35 billion toward meeting that goal. In July, Jeep revealed its 2022 Grand Cherokee 4xe plug-in hybrid and vowed to have a zero-emission vehicle in every SUV segment by 2025.
Separately, Toyota Motor North America announced it will spend $1.3 billion, part of a larger $3.4 billion, nine-year investment plan, to set up a U.S. lithium-ion-battery plant to supply U.S.-market hybrid and electric vehicles. That plant is set to start production in 2025, Toyota said. The automaker had previously announced it will spend $13.5 billion worldwide to produce its own batteries and to develop a solid-state battery by 2025 as well. In September, a Toyota executive told Automotive News that the company is already testing a “working prototype.”
Although Toyota has been slower than some companies to express enthusiasm for EVs, focusing more attention on hybrids, its announcement today was titled “Toyota charges into electrified future in the U.S.” The automaker says it will build “about 70” hybrid or electric models by 2025, of which 15 will be fully electric.
The news from Stellantis and Toyota follows closely on Ford and General Motors’ statements that they are investing in new U.S. facilities for EV production. Ford’s Blue Oval City will produce batteries and electric vehicles in Tennessee, with a separate facility in Kentucky, and its Ion Park will develop batteries in Michigan. GM has two joint-venture battery plants, also with LG, in Ohio and Tennessee. The first of these should start producing battery cells in the second half of 2022.
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