Toyota Will Assemble Battery Packs in Ontario to Support RAV4 Production
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Toyota will reportedly assemble battery packs in Ontario in order to support production of the sixth-generation RAV4. The move marks a big change for the automaker’s Canadian production plants, according to Scott MacKenzie, director of corporate and external affairs at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC).
The updates to the plants in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ont., are required because the sixth-generation 2026 Toyota RAV4 will only be sold with a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid powertrain. Although the TMMC West plant in Woodstock currently builds the hybrid version of the current, fifth-generation RAV4, neither it nor the Cambridge plant have the capacity to assemble battery packs.
However, work is already underway to prepare the locations for battery assembly, MacKenzie told Automotive News Canada. While the move is an important one for TMMC, it will not lead to growth at the plants.
The new assembly lines are being installed on existing floorspace while vehicle production is ongoing. As a result, the plants will only be shut down for a short period of time while they are retooled to prepare for production of the 2026 RAV4. MacKenzie claimed that vehicle assembly at the plants will only be down for a single-digit number of days.
While the battery assembly lines will require new workers, MacKenzie said that the requirements will be small and any staffing increases offset by jobs that are set to be lost to the manufacturer’s wider efficiency drive at the plants. As a result, overall employment at the plants should remain stable at around 8,500 people.
The Canadian battery pack assembly lines will be supplied by battery modules coming out of the United States at the automaker’s North Carolina battery manufacturing plant. MacKenzie said Toyota is keeping an eye on the tariff situation, but told AutoNews Canada it’s not making long-term decisions based on what it sees as short-term trade tension.
Getting new vehicles ready for production typically involves “six-, even seven-year investments,” MacKenzie said. “When you’re investing in a new model, we can’t get involved in short-term thinking, and honestly, we see tariffs […] as something that’s not sustainable.”
Set to go on sale later this year, the 2026 Toyota RAV4 is equipped with a 2.5L hybrid four-cylinder powertrain that makes 236 hp. The plug-in hybrid variant uses the same four-cylinder engine, but combines it with a trio of electric motors to increase power delivery and a larger battery pack to give it around 80 km of all-electric range.
