Toyota’s ‘Woven City’ Is Coming Together

Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda appeared at CES today to announce progress on the company’s Woven City project, an actual city like its namesake where Toyota and other companies hope to innovate and validate new technologies. The first phase of construction has been completed, and the first companies that will participate in the project have been named. In case you’re wondering, the “woven” thing is because, before cars were made, Toyota made looms.

In 2018, Toyota chose CES to announce its intention to transform into a “The Mobility Company,” Which is what many car companies said back then. The idea was that companies like Toyota should move away from just making cars and diversify into other products and services that enable the movement of people and goods. When the Woven City project was announced in 2020, Toyota said it would be a major contributing factor to that change.

According to a The Wall Street Journal reports Since 2023, the journey from announcement to incubator implementation has not been without its difficulties, but today’s announcement is another reflection of Toyota’s corporate characteristic, a willingness to stick with big projects. With the completion of the first phase, the company is renovating a former plant into a manufacturing hub and starting work on the second phase of the Woven City project.

Toyota calls the non-Toyota companies that will operate in the woven city “innovators.” So far, the list of “inventors” is:

• Daikin Industries (air-conditioning), which will test “pollen-free spaces” and “personal working environments”
• DyDo Drinco (soft drinks), which plans to work on new vending machine concepts.
• Nissin Food Products Co (Instant Noodles), which will develop and evaluate “food environments to inspire new ‘food culture'”
• UCC Japan Co (Coffee), which plans to work on future cafe experiences
• Joshinkai Holdings (Education), which will develop new educational methods and learning environments.

Beginning in fall 2025, 100 residents known as “weavers” will move into the city, with the number expected to expand to 360 in the first phase. Eventually, Toyota says, the city will house 2,000 people. They will primarily be employees of Toyota or Toyota Mobility Tech Company.

Toyota says additional companies, universities and startups will be invited to join the Woven City project in 2025.

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