Toyota Launches Woven City Near Mount Fuji For Technology Test

JAKARTA Toyota Motor launched the first part of Woven City, a testing site near Mount Fuji, Japan, on Thursday, September 25. The project, announced more than five years ago by former CEO of Toyota who now serves as chairman, Akio Toyoda, aims to accelerate testing next-generation technologies in the real world.

Woven City, developed by the technology unit focused on Toyota software, Woven by Toyota, is designed as a live "laboratorium" that simulates urban environments.

The site allows testing technologies such as autonomous vehicles and robotics, with about 300 residents, including Toyota employees and their families, to stay on site in the first phase. The population is expected to increase to around 2,000 after the project built on the former car factory's land is completed.

According to Woven by Toyota CEO Hajime Kumabe, the project aims to build a safer and more secure mobility community by integrating vehicles, humans, and infrastructure in real-world regulations.

Daisuke Toyoda, senior vice president of Woven by Toyota and the son of Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda, added that vehicle testing in living urban environments is critical to collecting data that ensures safety and security.

A total of 12 companies from Toyota Group, seven other companies, and a musician participated in this project. They had the opportunity to collect data and conduct long-term testing for products and services that were still in the development stage.

One of the participants, Daikin Industries, will test the technology to removeCEs from indoor air powder, particularly lidar tree juice powder which is the main trigger for allergic fever in Japan.

Toyota is also showing off autonomous robots equipped with lidar sensors and cameras to transport vehicles to specific locations, such as car-sharing points. The robot uses a technology-based system that Toyota already uses to transport vehicles at factories, such as at Motomachi factories in Aichi Prefecture.

The launch of Woven City marks Toyota's great step in dealing with rapid changes in the global automotive industry, which is now turning to software-based electrification, automation and innovation, competing with companies like Tesla, Alphabet's Waymo, Baidu, and Uber, which have tested autonomous vehicles in various international markets.