The world’s number one car manufacturer, Toyota, is investing almost $50 million in a new battery laboratory in the US. This will be built at the research and development headquarters in York Township and will go into operation in 2025.

The investment illustrates Toyota’s “change of direction toward electrification”, says Shinichi Yasui, Vice President at Toyota Motor North America (TMNA), Research and Development.

Over the last two years, the company has invested over $8 billion in its US manufacturing operations to support its product electrification efforts. On a global scale, Toyota now plans to invest more than $70 billion in vehicle electrification by 2030.

Evaluate and assist

The goal is to evaluate the development of batteries for electric vehicles from cell to package. This is to assist Toyota’s battery plant in North Carolina and the recently announced production of BEV SUVs in Kentucky.

In 2021, Toyota announced investments in EV production and development with a new company in the United States to drive the localization of battery production.

Yasui again: “By adding these critical evaluation capabilities around automotive batteries, our team is positioned to better serve our customers’ needs, including Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky.  The latter will soon assemble the recently announced all-new, three-row, battery-electric SUV.”

Integrate locally

The team at the new battery lab will also work with North American suppliers to integrate locally produced battery components and materials. Beyond battery development, the lab will also evaluate charging infrastructure.

In addition, chassis dynamometers at Toyota’s research and development sites in York Township and Ann Arbor will be upgraded to allow the evaluation of BEVs.

“With increasing production for electrification coming to North America, it’s important to have a local supporting infrastructure, but more importantly, it enables us to invest in team members and technology development,” said Jordan Choby, group vice president of Powertrain at TMNA R&D. “This new facility also enables us to experiment and pursue new opportunities as technology and business needs advance,’ Choby added.

New battery configurations

In addition to working with current battery production, Toyota says its engineers will explore new battery configurations for future products. These could contribute to Toyota’s development of new electrified vehicle architectures, among other things. Toyota, among others, is working hard to have a solid-state battery solution as soon as possible.

The Japanese manufacturer is keeping an open mind as to whether other tasks and competencies will be located in the new battery lab in the coming years to “support the needs of the battery and BEV ecosystem”.