Toyota's New Electric SUVs Will Be Built In Kentucky
Toyota is pressing forward with two new electric SUVs, and both will be built in America. The automaker recently told Reuters that it would build the upcoming three-row models at its facility in Kentucky, giving it a domestic production base as trade policies remain uncertain.
The new EVs will be based on the RAV4 and Land Cruiser, but both will ride on Toyota’s e-TNGA EV platform instead of sharing with their gas-powered counterparts. Toyota will kick off production next year, which will absorb the capacity left by the Lexus ES’ move back to Japan.
We don’t know much about either vehicle yet, other than the renderings Toyota shared back in 2023, which are almost certainly too radical to make it into production. The Land Cruiser SE seen then looked more like a sleek on-road-oriented vehicle rather than a beefy off-roader, so it will be interesting to see how Toyota configures the vehicles when they arrive. Given the options offered for other models, it wouldn’t be surprising to see both on- and off-road variants of both SUVs.
Toyota’s EV portfolio is expanding after a slow start. It recently updated the bZ4x, renaming it as the bZ, and a new bZ Woodland trim is due by 2026. We’ll also likely see an electric C-HR crossover at some point, following its introduction in other countries earlier this year.
[Images: Toyota]
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Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.
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I have compared the information reported here with the TTAC Commenter Knowledge Base™ and there are some discrepancies:
• EVs are not real, do not work and will never work. Also no electricity. And no money.
• Toyota is Way Too Smart to do electric vehicles. They only do hybrid vehicles.
• Automotive Assembly is Extremely Difficult and production allocation decisions take a Long Long Time, usually at least 5 years and 17.489 eleventy billion dollars. So how can they say they will start production in 2026 [this is September of 2025 already].
• Tariffs are good for emptying shelves and crashing stock markets, but have no effect on U.S. manufacturing decisions.
Some of you should alert Toyota to their folly. Better hurry. 😂
Why would Toyota - supposedly the smartest car company in the world, with long-range planning - build electric vehicles in the United States with no subsidies to help sell them?