A few weeks ago, Toyota outlined a massive $13.6 billion spend on battery research and production, including an investment in advanced solid-state battery tech. Today, Toyota announced the part of this project that will most impact those of us in the U.S.: Toyota will spend $3.4 billion over 10 years to build a facility to produce batteries here in America.

The location and opening date of the facility have yet to be detailed, but the factory is slated to come online in 2025. And Toyota promises the factory will create around 1,750 jobs here in the U.S. Toyota moved its headquarters from California to Texas several years ago, and while Toyota has roughly a dozen factories in the U.S., it might consider its "home state" for the factory. That said, it produces hybrid models at several plants in the Midwest and South, and the automaker is constructing a brand new factory in Alabama for its Mazda joint venture. Any of those sites might be well-suited to a battery factory.

Finally, there's the option of shopping for state tax breaks and other incentives, meaning the battery factory may just end up at whatever locality makes the strongest bid. BEV bZ4X model Subaru Solterra

While Toyota has been making somewhat surprising investments in battery technology that doesn't utilize the seemingly ubiquitous lithium-ion chemistry—including a fascinating new nickel-metal hydride battery that basically doubles both pack output and capacity. In addition to continuing to invest in this legacy battery chemistry, Toyota is still moving slowly on converting its entire fleet to BEVs, believing that hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles offer significant and economical (in terms of resource allocation) carbon reduction in the near- to mid-term.

In fact, when the new American battery factory goes online, it won't even produce BEV battery packs. For an unknown amount of time, it will produce only hybrid packs (whether this includes larger PHEV packs isn't clear). Nor is there any indication of what vehicles will utilize the packs, although Toyota and Lexus models produced in America are a good bet.

If you want to peer into the tea leaves a bit, consider recent pushes to reduce the EV tax credit on vehicles not built at union factories. Many foreign automakers, like Toyota and Honda, build many vehicles domestically but at non-union factories, and are obviously unhappy that their credit-eligible models would be at a disadvantage in this proposed tax credit scheme. It's certainly possible that, in addition to cost savings and other tax and political advantages, simply creating more American jobs by building factories here may dull that push somewhat. Looming fuel economy increases, generally, are another reason that automakers may be looking to increase their domestic battery production capabilities, and develop supply chains that can support them.