Toyota's Mississippi Plant Was Once Meant for the Prius. Now It Gets the Corolla Hybrid
The Blue Springs factory has built only gas Corollas since 2011. A $125 million retool adds the hybrid sedan in 2028, and roughly half the plant's output could go electrified.
Toyota's plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi, has built nothing but gas-powered Corolla sedans since it opened in 2011. That changes in 2028, when the factory adds the Corolla Hybrid — the first time the hybrid sedan will be assembled in the U.S.
Toyota put the plant in the spotlight last week to mark the Corolla's 60th birthday. The site employs 2,400 people, represents $1.3 billion of investment, and averages more than 180,000 cars a year, all of them Corollas, according to the company. That makes it the source for a big share of a car that finished the first half of 2026 barely behind the Civic — see how the Corolla stacks up against the Honda Civic.
The hybrid plant that took 20 years
Blue Springs was never supposed to be a Corolla factory. Toyota announced it in February 2007 as a Highlander plant, switched it to the Prius when gas prices spiked in 2008, then shelved it as the financial crisis hit. The Corolla assignment came in June 2010, when the closure of the NUMMI plant in California left the car without a U.S. home, and much of NUMMI's stamping and welding equipment moved south, WardsAuto reported at the time.
So the factory once earmarked for Toyota's signature hybrid will finally build one about two decades later. The move is funded by $125 million from a $912 million, five-plant hybrid package Toyota announced in November 2025. Unlike the engine and casting plants in that package, Blue Springs isn't adding jobs.
Half the output could go hybrid
The hybrid sedan is currently imported from Japan. Aaron Foster, the plant's vice president of manufacturing, told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal last November that the factory was running at or near capacity and should build about 90,000 hybrids a year based on current demand. That's roughly half its output. Some gas Corolla production will shift to Turkey to make room, the paper reported, and much of the money goes into space and equipment to prepare battery packs and install them on the existing line.
Foster said Toyota expects about 70 percent of its U.S. sales to be electrified in some form by 2030. Demand is already outrunning supply in places, as the RAV4 shortage shows.
One caveat on Toyota's "first electrified Corolla" framing: it applies to the Corolla itself. The Corolla Cross Hybrid crossover has been built at the Mazda Toyota Manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Alabama, since the 2023 model year.
Some of the people who will build the hybrid have been there almost from the start. Toyota's anniversary feature profiles a quality-control group leader who joined as a temp in 2012 and a senior production and quality manager who has worked at Blue Springs since it opened.
What Toyota hasn't said is which Corolla the plant will build. The current 12th-generation car has been in production since 2019, and Foster declined to discuss timing for its replacement. Before any of that, the 60th Anniversary Special Edition reaches dealers in early 2027.
