Toyota Futuristic Smart City Launching Later This Year: CES 2025

One of the most ambitious projects announced at CES in the last decade has taken a major step forward.

The concept of Toyota’s radical Woven City – which the Japanese automaker describes as a “test course for mobility” – was initially revealed in 2020. Now, five years later, the company says the first phase of construction is complete and ready for launch later this year.

What the Woven City actually is still seems a little opaque, although more will presumably become clearer in time. 

When the idea was first revealed in 2020, Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda described it as his “personal Field of Dream.” The vision included extensive use of autonomous vehicles (AVs), such as the e-Palette, which is now in production, plus smart homes that used robotics and AI to help run residents’ lives and monitor their health.

The name, meanwhile, was explained as a reference to the three different types of streets woven together to create the city – one for faster vehicles, one for lower-speed personal mobility and one for pedestrians.

Based on a 175-acre former industrial site in the shadow of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka, Japan, Woven City appears to be evolving as Toyota’s interpretation of a living laboratory, where inventors, start-ups and entrepreneurs can work together to create innovative products and services.

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These creators, which can include Toyota employees and Toyota Group companies, as well as external operators, will live on site in what the company describes as a “unique environment equipped with the tools and services needed to tackle societal challenges and create future-focused value.”

As you would expect of CES, some of the “societal challenges” were far from modest. Among some of the ideas mentioned by Akio Toyoda in a press conference were personal drones that follow joggers for security and pet robots for elderly people.

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For the time being though, the first “inventors” confirmed for Woven City are a little less futuristic, and include vending machine company DyDo DRINCO and an instant noodle manufacturer, Nissin Food Products.

While these might seem slightly underwhelming for a concept that has captured so much attention, what is undeniable is that Woven City is gathering momentum, with external start-ups, universities and research institutions set to be invited through an accelerator program starting in summer.

The site includes buildings designed by renowned Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, and the first 100 residents are expected to arrive at the launch in the fall of this year, with the total population ultimately expected to reach 2000. Members of the public will be allowed access in 2026.

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Ultimately, Toyota and the Woven by Toyota (WbyT) company developing the project still seem confident of its potential to “redefine mobility” – and in an intriguing glimpse of what is yet to come, WbyT also announced it was investing in Interstellar Technologies, with the aim of using Toyota’s expertise to mass-produce rockets to help build a reliable infrastructure to support AV tech.