Rich in cash, Japan automaker Toyota builds a city to test futuristic mobility

February 23, 2025 by Yuri Kageyama

Collected at: https://techxplore.com/news/2025-02-rich-cash-japan-automaker-toyota.html

Woven City near Mount Fuji is where Japanese automaker Toyota plans to test everyday living with robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous zero-emissions transportation.

Daisuke Toyoda, an executive in charge of the project from the automaker’s founding family, stressed it’s not “a smart city.”

“We’re making a test course for mobility so that’s a little bit different. We’re not a real estate developer,” he said Saturday during a tour of the facility, where the first phase of construction was completed.

The Associated Press was the first foreign media to get a preview of the $10 billion Woven City.

The first phase spans 47,000 square meters (506,000 square feet), roughly the size of about five baseball fields. When completed, it will be 294,000 square meters (3.1 million square feet).

Built on the grounds of a shuttered Toyota Motor Corp. auto plant, it’s meant to be a place where researchers and startups come together to share ideas, according to Toyoda.

Ambitious plans for futuristic cities have sputtered or are unfinished, including one proposed by Google’s parent company Alphabet in Toronto; “Neom” in Saudi Arabia; a project near San Francisco, spearheaded by a former Goldman Sachs trader, and Masdar City next to Abu Dhabi’s airport.

Woven City’s construction began in 2021. All the buildings are connected by underground passageways, where autonomous vehicles will scuttle around collecting garbage and making deliveries.

No one is living there yet. The first residents will total just 100 people.

Called “weavers,” they’re workers at Toyota and partner companies, including instant noodle maker Nissin and Daikin, which manufactures air-conditioners. Coffee maker UCC was serving hot drinks from an autonomous-drive bus, parked in a square surrounded by still-empty apartment complexes.

The city’s name honors Toyota’s beginnings as a maker of automatic textile looms. Sakichi Toyoda, Daisuke Toyoda’s great-great-grandfather, just wanted to make life easier for his mother, who toiled on a manual loom.

There was little talk of using electric vehicles, an area where Toyota has lagged. While Tesla and Byd emerged as big EV players, Toyota has been pushing hydrogen, the energy of choice in Woven City.

• This photo provided by Woven by Toyota shows a main street and the complexes at Woven City in Susono city, Shizuoka Prefecture on Feb. 2025. Credit: Woven by Toyota via AP
• Toyota executives in charge of Woven City, from left to right, Woven by Toyota CFO Kenta Kon, CEO Hajime Kumabe and Head of Woven City Management Daisuke Toyoda speak to reporters about the first phase construction of the project in Susono, Japan Feb. 22, 2025. Credit: AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama
• Reports see the apartment complexes and the roads where a mobility will be tested at Toyota’s Woven City during a tour in Susono, Shizuoka prefecture, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. Credit: AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama
• This photo provided by Woven by Toyota shows the sign of Toyota Woven City in Susono city, Shizuoka Prefecture on Feb. 2025. Credit: Woven by Toyota via AP

Toyota officials acknowledged it doesn’t expect to make money from Woven City, at least not for years.

Keisuke Konishi, auto analyst at Quick Corporate Valuation Research Center, believes Toyota wants to work on robotic rides to rival Google’s Waymo—even if it means building an entire complex.

“Toyota has the money to do all that,” he said.