Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, in Georgetown about 15 miles north of Lexington, is the largest Toyota vehicle plant in the world and the company’s first wholly owned car factory in the United States. The first Camry came off the line on 26 May 1988, and the site has built roughly 15 million vehicles since, backed by more than $12 billion of investment. It employs close to 10,000 people and builds engines as well as cars.
The Camry has been in continuous production here since 1989 and remains the plant’s volume model. Lexus ES assembly, which began in 2015 and made Georgetown the first American plant to build a Lexus, is being wound down. RAV4 Hybrid production started in June 2026, adding Toyota’s best-selling model to the site.
Georgetown’s next change is electric. Toyota assembles the 2027 Highlander EV here from September 2026, the first battery-electric vehicle the company has built in the United States. Its NMC cells come from LG Energy Solution’s plant in Lansing, Michigan, with further battery work at Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina. Toyota is also building a next-generation paint facility at the site, which it says will cut the plant’s paint-shop carbon emissions by 30 percent and save about 1.5 million gallons of water a year.
