TOKYO — Indiana might nicely change into the most-favored location for Subaru to determine an electrical car manufacturing website on the planet’s largest economic system, the Japanese automaker’s  CEO stated.

Subaru sees 2023 via 2028 as a key interval for increase its EV gross sales so that it’ll finally hit an annual gross sales goal of 600,000 battery-powered autos by 2030 that can make up half of its international gross sales.

It goals to promote 400,000 of these in the US.

The automaker remains to be contemplating the place in the US it’ll produce EVs, Subaru CEO Atsushi Osaki instructed reporters at a roundtable assembly in Tokyo on Wednesday.

The corporate, a fifth owned by Toyota Motor Corp., already owns a plant in Lafayette, Ind., the place it has been producing Legacy and Outback fashions.

That website could nicely come out as high candidate location for the corporate’s EV manufacturing, Osaki stated, whereas cautioning it has not made any ultimate choices on the problem and was contemplating a variety of issues.

“The time to decide is coming shut,” he added, with out saying whether or not the corporate was contemplating to construct a brand new manufacturing facility or add to or revamp present manufacturing strains.

Osaki stated he met Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb in Japan this month, with out giving additional particulars, resembling whether or not the 2 had talked about any extra funding by Subaru.

Throughout his journey to Japan, Holcomb additionally visited Gunma, the prefecture north of Tokyo that’s dwelling to Subaru’s important home facility, and individually met with executives of Toyota and Honda Motor, which each even have vegetation in Indiana.

Holcomb additionally met Japan’s commerce and overseas ministers, in accordance with posts on his official account on social media platform X.

Subaru, which is understood for its heavy reliance on the North American market, stated in August it aimed to broaden its battery-powered line-up to eight fashions by the top of 2028.

It has been making its first mass-produced EV, the Solterra, at Toyota’s Motomachi plant, and can launch three new EVs by the top of 2026 and 4 extra by the top of 2028.