In spite of confirming it has once again fallen short of its production targets, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) has also announced a US$5.6 billion dollar investment into battery manufacturing for electric vehicles (RV), at its factories in Japan and the USA.
TMC reported that its global July vehicle production output was down 8.6% year-on-year. It’s the fourth month in a row that the brand has fallen short of meeting its internal targets.
It produced 706,547 vehicles in July; well short of the 800,000 it had forecasted and down on the 773,135 it produced in the same month last year.
Reuters reports that July’s drop was unsurprisingly caused by COVID-19 outbreaks, extreme weather, the ongoing semiconductor shortage, and a recall probe.
In August, TMC stood defiant in the face of its recent production woes, stating that it would not impact the brand’s projected annual output of 9.7 million vehicles.
It announced this while also dropping its expected production target for August from 850,000 to 700,000 units. The brand expects production to ramp up in September, with its target for next month still sitting at 850,000 units.
EV battery production
TMC says of the $US5.6b budget for EV battery production, some US$2.8b will be invested in its Himeji Plant and in other Japanese facilities, and US$2.35b will be invested in the Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina plant in the US.
Reuters reports that the latter represents a tripling of what Toyota had initially pledged to spend on US development.
Battery production at these factories is set to begin between 2024 and 2026. The two factories could form part of TMC’s proposed solid state battery production scheme.
While the move has been widely interpreted as one that is EV specific, TMC’s accompanying statement continued to follow the brand’s previous line; that CO2 reduction is also about hybrids and hydrogen vehicles.
“Toyota believes that there is more than one option for achieving carbon neutrality,” said the brand in a statement.
“It also believes that the means of reducing CO2 emissions as much and as quickly as possible while protecting the livelihoods of its customers vary greatly depending on the country and region.
“With such in mind, Toyota will continue to make every effort to flexibly meet the needs of its various customers in all countries and regions by offering multiple powertrains and providing as many options as possible.”
TMC’s electric vehicle journey has endured a rocky start thus far, with its bZ4X hit with an early recall and delays caused by supply shortages.
