Toyota Motor Corp on Thursday launched an experimental "city” in central Japan where self-driving vehicles, delivery robots and personal transporters operate to provide services to residents, marking a rare urban initiative by an automaker.
In the first phase of the Woven City project on about 47,000 square meters of land at the foot of Mount Fuji in Susono, Shizuoka Prefecture, a few households have moved in. Around 300 more people linked to Toyota are expected to live there.
In the future, the testing ground will be expanded to about 294,000 square meters, with more than 2,000 Toyota-related residents expected to live there. From fiscal 2026 onward, it will also accept members of the general public.
Daisuke Toyoda, the eldest son of Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda and senior vice president of Woven by Toyota Inc, said at Thursday’s ceremony, "I want to realize a safe and secure mobility society by linking social infrastructureand mobility.”
The testing ground includes roads for autonomous vehicles and special traffic lights equipped with sensors and cameras. Officials said they will be used to test self-driving technologies that are difficult to trial on public roads due to legal constraints.
Serving as a living laboratory, the site will let officials test coordination between infrastructure and vehicles to enable safe, smooth self-driving, such as adjusting traffic light frequency based on pedestrian and vehicle flow.
A network of underground roads at the site also allows for an ideal environment to test self-driving technologies without the interference of sunlight or dust.
Toyota has partnered with seven non-automotive companies to create new services, including Nissin Foods Holdings Co, education platform operator Zoshinkai Holdings Inc, appliance maker Daikin Industries, and rocket startup Interstellar Technologies.
Nissin is considering operating a restaurant tailoring meals to individuals based on their age and gender, its officials said.
Toyota has been stepping up efforts to transform itself into a mobility firm, with greater focus on software in the era of connected, autonomous, shared and electric vehicles.
Globally, tech giants such as Google, Apple Inc and Amazon.com have also entered the smart city development field.
Some skeptics have raised concerns over the vast amounts of personal data collected through sensors and other devices. Data security and privacy protection are viewed as key hurdles before communities can fully adopt smart city technology.
Akio Toyoda unveiled the Woven City project ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 2020.
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Dieser Artikel ist neu veröffentlicht von / This article is republished from: Qatar Tribune, 28.09.2025
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