Toyota — one of the world’s largest manufacturers of automobiles is building a battery factory in the Fukuoka prefecture to manufacture electric vehicle batteries for Lexus vehicles. The factory, which will be operated by Toyota subsidiary Primearth EV Energy was not officially announced by Toyota.
The source — Nikkei did not specify where they obtained this information and the cost of the battery factory is also unknown. Toyota has an electric vehicle sales target of 3.5 million units per year by 2030.
Toyota, like other manufacturers has been ramping up their electric vehicle and battery development efforts over the past decade. They started out with parallel hybrids such as the Prius, and expanded to produce a host of other types of hybrid and electric vehicles. This expansion helps Toyota to justify the construction of their own battery factory.
This factory will likely help Toyota to ramp up production of their already popular hybrid vehicle segment as well as their growing electric vehicle segment to account for growth in the future. Toyota is also rolling out next generation batteries to improve electric vehicles further, which should make them more appealing to consumers.
The recent wave of negative news about the electric vehicle industry and falling interest hasn’t stopped Toyota from moving forward with projects such as these factories because that wave is a flash in the pan.
Media outlets and some manufacturers which are generally opposed to electric vehicles have been spreading around misinformation regarding the future of electric vehicles to throw cold water on the public’s interest in the vehicles.
Claiming that something you don’t like is ‘over’ or ‘dead’ is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Furthermore, EV sales figures don’t reflect the negative sentiment being propagated in the media. For example, New Zealand and Mexico are seeing electric vehicles gain a larger share of the overall automobile market.
