Toyota Delays First EV Made in the United States Due to Low Demand

• Toyota had planned to manufacture a new electric vehicle in Kentucky starting in late 2025.

• This all-electric three-row SUV is now scheduled to launch in early 2026.

• Another US-made EV is in the cards, with an introduction planned later that same year.

The EV market has cooled significantly in North America over the last few months, forcing many automakers to review their plans.

Toyota is one of them, having just announced it is pushing back the launch of its next EV by a couple of months.

First teased a while ago, this upcoming electric vehicle will be a three-row crossover that could serve as a battery-powered alternative to the popular Highlander or Grand Highlander models.

Very few details are known about this as-yet-unnamed electric SUV, except that it will be manufactured in the automaker’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant.

To prepare for the arrival of electric propulsion, Toyota will invest $1.3 Billion in this facility which currently produces the Camry, the RAV4 Hybrid, and the Lexus ES.

In addition, Toyota has also announced a further $1.4 Billion investment in its Princeton, Indiana plant to retool for another upcoming electric SUV. This factory makes the Highlander, Grand Highlander, Sienna, and Lexus TX.

Since market conditions now seem much less favourable to EVs in North America than only a few months ago, the Japanese automaker has decided to delay the arrival of its first US-made EV until early 2026 instead of its initial goal of late 2025.

This decision doesn’t seem to have affected the second future EV, which is still planned to roll out of the Indiana assembly line later in 2026, as a 2027 model.

Despite this change of plans, Toyota still maintains its target of achieving 1.5 million electric vehicles around the world by 2026.

While neither American-made EV will be ready in time to help with this goal, they will help the automaker achieve its other target, which is to sell seven all-electric models in the United States and Canada within the next two years.

As a reminder, the company currently only has two EVs on offer in these markets: the bZ4X compact crossover and its closely-related Lexus RZ 450e counterpart.

This means that we can expect more to come in the near future from Toyota and Lexus in terms of new product launches.

Source: The Japan Times