• Toyota says it plans to invest in electrification in Ontario… when the time is right.
Over the past few months, we've seen a number of announcements from automakers concerning investments in electrification in Ontario, but also in Quebec.
One of the brands that has remained discreet until now is Toyota. Last week the company did have something to say about it, through company president Frank Voss, who was speaking at the Automotive Summit of Canada organized by the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, and held in Vaughan, Ontario.
"We're a very cautious company and we take a lot of time to make decisions, but they're usually good decisions."
- Frank Voss, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada
Voss acknowledged that Toyota is the only one of the five automakers currently assembling vehicles in Ontario not to have announced plans for local production of EVs or battery cells.
However, he stressed that the right investment at the right time is very important. “When the time comes for us to invest in Ontario, we'll be ready to do so.”
Of course, Voss didn't specify whether future investments would be in electric vehicle assembly or battery production, or both, but he did point out that Toyota's battery production plans in North America were inadequate to meet demand in the medium term.
Even taking a “conservative approach” with a 30-percent adoption rate for electric vehicles in North America in 2030, he said the company "will need more" battery production capacity. Toyota is already spending $13.9 billion USD on a battery cell complex in North Carolina, which is expected to produce 30 GWh of cells per year by 2028.
In Ontario, Toyota employs some 8,500 workers at its Cambridge and Woodstock plants, where the Toyota RAV4 as well as the Lexus NX, RX 350 and 500 h are assembled. In 2023 alone, 525,811 vehicles were manufactured there, according to Automotive News' Research and Data Center. Voss said that Toyota planned to build more than half a million vehicles at these two plants again in 2024.
Voss made it clear at the conference that Toyota has no doubt the future is electric, but that the speed of the transition is uncertain. That's why the company is being criticized for its slowness, compared with the commitment of other companies.
In Quebec and Ontario, more than $50 billion in investments have been promised by various manufacturers over the past three years. According to Frank Voss, these investments testify to Ontario's ability to meet demand.