Toyota hits pause on making electric cars in America

While Tesla has been canceling its cheap electric models, Japanese automaker Toyota has been pushing back some of its electric ambitions. The Corolla maker announced today that it will delay its plans for U.S.-made EVs until 2026, reports Bloomberg.

Toyota initially planned to offer American-made EVs from 2025, reports Bloomberg. However, the automaker will now not roll out its fleet of U.S. electric models until at least 2026, when it aims to have seven electric cars on sale in the Land Of The Free:

The Japanese carmaker initially targeted late next year to begin output of a three-row, battery-powered SUV at an assembly plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, but a company spokesman said Wednesday that has slipped by a few months into the following year.

Toyota is still committed to making the as-yet-unnamed SUV in Kentucky from early 2026 and another unspecified all-electric SUV at a factory in Princeton, Indiana, starting later that year, he said.

The planned expansion of Toyota’s EV lineup in the US from the current two vehicles to as many as seven comes at a time when demand for battery-powered vehicles has slowed. The US rollout is part of a broader goal to sell 1.5 million EVs globally by 2026. To help reach that, Toyota is building a lithium-ion battery plant in North Carolina that is expected to start up in 2025.

The delay to Toyota’s American EVs follows a tempering of expectations from the brand for its electric ambitions. Last month, the automaker cut its EV output targets by about a third. The company now aims to produce about a million EVs by 2026, down from the 1.5 million that it was initially aiming to produce by the end of the year.

Toyota has repeatedly shown a reluctance to embrace electrification, instead opting to expand its offering of hybrid models like the Corolla and Prius. That strategy appeared to be paying off for the automaker earlier this year, when it posted rising sales and profits as a result of the increased attention on hybrid cars.

A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik’s The Morning Shift.