Japan’s Toyota Motor planned to build a lithium ion battery plant for electric vehicles in the southwestern prefecture of Fukuoka and supply its batteries to a factory that makes luxury Lexus brand cars. This was reported by Reuters back in July 2024.

Now, comes news that Toyota has postponed the opening of this EV battery plant in Japan as global demand for EV’s slowdown from previous reported 2025 consumer demand predictions.

Meanwhile, the world’s top-selling automaker is being cautious as even Chinese EV manufacturers take a slow shift to hybrid powered vehicles, which Toyota has been  a market leader for decades,

Did you know that Toyota had planned to make the island of Kyushu where Fukuoka is located a central part of its supply chain for battery-powered vehicles and an export base for Asia, Reuters mentioned in July 2024.

At the time, Toyota management was taking various initiatives to strengthen its EV battery production capacity, the spokesperson added.

Did you know that Toyota makes Lexus vehicles at the Miyata plant of its subsidiary Toyota Motor Kyushu? The automaker has previously said it will introduce EVs employing next-generation batteries globally from 2026, manufactured by its EV-focused unit BEV Factory.

The company had earlier targeted sales of 3.5 million EVs annually by 2030, with just under half of those made by the BEV Factory unit. Toyota sold 104,000 EVs in 2023.

This EV battery plant was to be operated by Primearth EV Energy, another Toyota subsidiary that specializes in making batteries for hybrids, plug-in hybrids and purely battery-powered vehicles.