Another of Toyota’s U.S.-made electric vehicles will be assembled in Kentucky.
Following a $1.3 billion investment to retool assembly lines at Toyota Kentucky in Georgetown, the Japanese automaker said it will build its 2027 Highlander at the assembly plant just 15 miles north of Lexington.
The battery electric vehicle is expected to roll off assembly lines for purchase at the end of this year, Toyota said Feb. 11.
The Highlander model has been one of Toyota’s bestsellers since the first model debuted in 2001.
The new version is a three-row SUV for up to seven passengers built with American-sourced batteries and has a maximum estimated range of 320 miles on a full charge.
Toyota’s investment in EVs comes with stark contract to other automakers shifting priorities away from EVs and hybrids. But it’s doing so on the back of a year of success. In 2025, Toyota reported a year-over-year increase of more than 17% in its electric vehicle sales. Nearly half of the vehicles Toyota sold last year were EVs — 1,183,248 of 2,518,071 were electric vehicles, or 47%.
Toyota will bring an all-new, three-row battery electric SUV to product at Kentucky. TMMK
By sales volume, Toyota is the second-largest automaker in the country and trails General Motors, according to Zacks Financial Research.
On Thursday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear opened his weekly news conference with details about the investment and thanked Toyota for contributing to the growth of the state’s economy for decades.
“This is both the company’s first battery electric vehicle for the U.S. market and its first battery electric vehicle assembled in the United States, and they’re doing them both in Kentucky,” he said. “I’m grateful that they continue to invest in our commonwealth.”
Toyota Kentucky is the automaker’s largest vehicle manufacturing plant in the world. It is capable of producing 550,000 vehicles and more than 600,000 engines annually. Since 1988, more than 14 million vehicles have rolled off Toyota’s assembly lines where full-time employment is roughly 9,950.
Toyota Kentucky manufactures the Camry Hybrid, RAV4 Hybrid, some Lexus models and now, the new Highlander. The new vehicle will be the automaker’s fourth in its lineup of battery EVs.
In February 2024, the company invested $1.3 billion in its Georgetown facility to manufacture a three-row battery electric SUV.
“Today’s announcement reflects our commitment to vehicle electrification and further reinvesting in our U.S. operations,” Toyota Kentucky President Kerry Creech said at the time. “Generations of our team members helped prepare for this opportunity, and we will continue leading the charge into the future by remaining true to who we are as a company and putting our people first for generations to come.”
And in November 2025, it put almost $205 million and added more than 80 jobs in Georgetown for the production of hybrid vehicles. Those new production lines at the plant will manufacture the all electric 2027 Highlander.
The November investment in Kentucky was part of Toyota’s promise to spend $10 billion over the next five years in the U.S.
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Piper Hansen is a local business and regional economic development reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader. She previously covered similar topics and housing in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Before that, Hansen wrote about state government and politics in Arizona.
