Toyota Opens Smart ‘Woven City’ Against Mount Fuji, Welcoming First Residents
Image via Toyota
Mount Fuji now shares its view with a different kind of peak achievement. At CES 2025, Toyota announced the opening of the first phase of Woven City, an experimental urban development that puts tomorrow’s technology through its paces in today’s world.
With its first phase now complete, the prototype metropolis—envisioned as a “living laboratory” and located at the automaker’s former Higashi-Fuji Plant—is ready to welcome its initial residents, a group of 100 Toyota employees and their families, by the end of 2025.
The ambitious development will marry human-centric design with state-of-the-art tech, creating a space where autonomous vehicles, robotics, smart homes, and artificial intelligence can be tested in a real-world environment, with plans to eventually accommodate 2,000 inhabitants. Residential areas in the city’s first iteration are mostly constructed from wood, featuring solar panels and AI systems designed to monitor health and wellness.
Image via Toyota
First announced in 2018 by then-Toyota president Akio Toyoda, Woven City is intended to reimagine urban living through sustainability and innovation. The name itself symbolizes the integration of diverse technological and social “threads” into a unified whole.
“We do this by bringing together a diverse community of people with a shared passion for the future of mobility to co-create, develop and refine innovative products and services,” explains Toyota. “This cross-section of social infrastructure, mobility, and people provides a unique opportunity for inventors, residents and visitors to interact seamlessly with new technologies throughout daily life in an environment that emulates a real city.”
Image via Toyota
Designed by renowned Danish architect Bjarke Ingels of the BIG company, Woven City’s infrastructure prioritizes safety and efficiency. Its streets are divided into three types: one for autonomous vehicles, another for pedestrians, and a third for pedestrians using personal mobility devices. Hydrogen fuel cells power the city, keeping in faith with Toyota’s commitment to sustainable energy. These carefully planned features earned Woven City Japan’s first LEED for Communities Platinum certification, a prestigious recognition for environmentally conscious urban planning.
Image via Toyota
The city’s ultimate goal is to become a collaborative hub for innovation, attracting researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs from around the world. While the first residents are Toyota employees, the company intends to expand the community to include business partners, startups, and academics. Public access is expected to begin in 2026, allowing more people to engage with the technologies being developed and tested.
Toyota has committed approximately US$10 billion to this project. By using Woven City as a sandbox for new ideas, the company hopes to set a precedent for integrating technology and sustainability into daily life. As the city evolves, it promises to offer valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities of building smarter, greener communities.
Image via Toyota
[via Forbes and Business Standard, images via Toyota]
