By Steven Symes 
With pressure from President Trump’s 25 percent car tariffs, Toyota has decided to sink $88 million into its manufacturing plant located in Buffalo, West Virginia. As a result, the facility will be churning out more hybrid transaxles staring in late 2026, helping to keep over 2,000 people gainfully employed.
The Toyota Supra MKV takes its final bow.
David Rosier, president of Toyota West Virginia characterized the announcement as “another example of Toyota’s ‘build where we sell’ philosophy.” While Toyota has historically assembled a number of vehicles and components here in the US, we can bet with Trump’s moves the automaker’s dedication to that philosophy will only increase.
The $88 million investment, Toyota is looking to boost hybrid transaxle production at the factory from 480,000 units a year to 609,000 units. Considering consumers are increasingly turning away from EVs and favoring hybrid vehicles, that could prove to be a rather wise move.
After all, over half of the vehicles Toyota sells in the US are hybrids, with sales of hybrid models increasing 40 percent for the first quarter of this year versus Q1 2024. It seems to make perfect sense why the automaker would be ramping up production here instead of bringing in transaxles manufactured outside of the country.
For now, the West Virginia plant is the only one in North America that makes hybrid transaxles. By not relying on transaxles assembled in Japan, Toyota will be able to sidestep the new tariffs imposed by President Trump.
That could be why in its official press release about the investment in the Buffalo, West Viriginia plan, Toyota also makes a big deal about its manufacturing footprint inside the US. The automaker has almost 50,000 employees at 11 factories, plus has invested $25 billion into facilities in this country since 2018, which are impressive figures.
Even more key to Toyota’s future success is the fact it already assembles over half of the cars, trucks, and SUVs sold in the US in this country, a number which will likely increase in the near future.
Image via Toyota
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