Toyota's Buffalo plant to expand presence in EV market

Between November 2021 and February 2022, the plant announced $313 million in new investments toward building capability to manufacture an estimated 600,000 hybrid transaxles a year.

It was a move intended to help the company reach its goal of offering an electric option across its entire lineup of vehicles by 2025.

“That equipment is just about ready to start showing up, which means we’re ready to start doing install, doing trials, and that kind of work,” Toyota Motor Manufacturing, West Virginia, Inc., President David Rosier said. “That’s really where we’re focused right now, making sure we have a really successful launch.”

Production of the hybrid transaxles is expected to begin in early 2024.

Toyota’s continued push into the electric vehicle market comes as EV sales grew 65% last year despite overall auto sales dropping 8%. Electric vehicles accounted for 6% of all new vehicle purchases.

The company isn’t only looking to expand its eco-friendly options on the road — it’s making internal changes, as well.

Toyota also recently heralded installation of two separate solar panel arrays, the larger of which covers 5 acres and consists of 7,200 panels capable of producing 3,335,000 kWh per year, making it the largest solar field in West Virginia.

A smaller “field” of “solar flowers” is automated to “bloom” in the morning, follow the sun’s light and fold up again in the evening. That handful of $30,000 satellite-esque units alone powers two buildings and multiple EV charging stations.

Last year the company announced a purchase agreement with Mineral and Grant county’s Black Rock 115-megawatt wind farm to further diversify its energy profile.

On Wednesday, Capito praised the company for its foresight.

“I think any company that knows what the future is going to look like in terms of being environmental stewards is going to try to emulate what they’re doing here. I think many companies are,” Capito said.

According to Bloomberg, the first half of 2022 saw a record $226 billion investment globally in renewable energy, with solar and wind leading the pack.

“It’s not an inexpensive venture to try to convert, so I think what’s nice here is it’s a transitional kind of thing for this particular plant where now maybe they’re generating 8, 5, 10% of their power with visions to generate even more,” Capito said.

Rosier said the 10% solar breakdown at the Buffalo plant corresponds to 10% in savings on the company’s energy bill. Utilization of solar and wind is one step the plant has taken to meet the larger company plan to be carbon neutral by 2035 and eliminate emissions completely by 2050.

“Part of that equation is how do you reduce the amount of energy that you consume. What you can’t see is that we’re doing a lot of work inside the factory to try and reduce the amount of energy consumption that we have,” Rosier said. “Even simple things like lighting, we can do it in our own homes, we do the same thing here. We use really energy-efficient lighting to reduce that load. ... The new equipment that we get, especially with new investment, they are designed intentionally to consume less energy.”

Plant officials say they hope that sort of investment will lead to further dollars coming into the Buffalo facility in the near future.

“As the auto industry continues to transition into electrification, and there’s new investment that’s going to have to come for that, making sure that we are competitive with our costs is really important,” Rosier said. “Doing this type of activity will continue to make us attractive for future investment.”