Toyota has gone from lobbying against EVs to spending billions on battery development
Toyota, the largest automaker in the world, announced that it will spend $3.4 billion on “automative batteries” in the US through 2030 — a little more than two months after it was revealed that the company was quietly lobbying elected officials in Washington, DC to slow the transition to electric vehicles.
As part of the deal, Toyota will build a new $1.29 billion factory in the US to make batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles, which the company says will generate 1,750 new jobs. The automaker is the latest to announce plans to shore up battery manufacturing in the US, which has been a key goal of the Biden administration’s effort to speed up the switch to EVs.
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