- Woven City is a key initiative in Toyota's transformation into a transportation company
- It will explore ideas, products, and travel services
- It may affect the vehicle software, or the positioning of urban vehicles, among many places
At CES 2025 in Las Vegas on Monday, Toyota gave an update on its Woven City project that was first presented as a concept at CES 2020.
Woven City serves as an experimental study of mobility—it looks beyond the cars and traditional modes of transportation produced by Toyota.
Toyota has reported that it has completed construction of the first buildings of the Woven City in Shizuoka, Japan, and has also refitted a former manufacturing facility to serve as production area of the project. This Phase 1 of the project is scheduled to be officially launched in the fall of 2025.
This center, as its name suggests, is a city in the making, and aims to explore ideas, products, and services for transportation. It includes both Toyota and Toyota Group companies as well as “foreign companies, start-ups, and individual entrepreneurs.”
Starting later this year, Woven City will operate as a group incubator for ideas and the will look at the collaboration between the foundersand feedback from residents and designers. Phase 1 will house about 360 residents, while there will be 2,000 or more residents for Phase 2 and beyond.
Woven City will use skills from productivity softwareand according to Toyota it “provides a unique environment with the tools and services needed to address societal challenges and create future-oriented value.”
Toyota Urban SUV Concept
Specifically, the range of products and services from Woven City may not be directly related to the current or future range of vehicles, and may run the gamut—from applications automated e-pallets in assisted solutions and robotic solutions helping to cook or fold clothes.
Toyota did not disclose how much money was invested in this project, but it made Woven by Toyota (WbyT) a lot of money. a wholly owned subsidiary of the company in 2023.
In addition to working with Enos Corporation, Rinnai Corporation, and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, early “innovators” in Woven City include Daikin Industries, DyDo Drinco, Nissin Food Products, UCC Japan, and Zoshinkai Holdings. Long-time supplier Denso is involved.
The Toyota automaker started in 1933, but the related Toyoda Loom Works at that time was already strong in weaving, so Woven City is in line with the company's heritage.
Toyota i-Road electric urban mobility car
Perhaps a sign of the times, Toyota it did not completely concentrate on hydrogen for the project. While Toyota may not be making all things mobility-related a focus—perhaps not as much, as recently, as Hyundai's hydrogen idea—it hasn't given up on hydrogen and dedicated its US “hydrogen headquarters” to fuel-cell product development by 2024.
Toyota also didn't say exactly how much electrification, energy, or environmental considerations will play a role—though it likely will, and it's earned Japan's first LEED for Communities Platinum certification. Although Toyota is still asking deep questions about the Woven City, they are also looking at the design of new engines but it is still being discussed internally when they see the end of non-petrol vehicles.
2025 Toyota bZ4X
In a broad sense, what Woven City can give you is its idea how cars can fit into today's societywith its crowded lifestyle, aging population, and diverse occupations and commuting patterns. But as for how it will change the interfaces of the car software, the interior, or even the shape of the car's body and the movement itself, we have to let them get to work.