No car company wants to be simply a “car company” anymore. The future—however far-off that may be—is about advanced software, electrification, automated driving systems, flying vehicles, personal mobility devices and more. Nowhere is that more apparent than CES, where promises are big but expectations for reality should be tempered.
But Toyota says it’s making good on one of its biggest promises ever, made at CES five years ago today: the automaker says it has completed the first phase of its $10.13 billion Woven City project and it will launch a scholarship program for startups and individuals seeking to build out their most ambitious ideas there.
It’s admittedly a bit hard to conceptualize. But in effect, Toyota is building a giant live-in startup accelerator in Japan with a particular emphasis on developing different kinds of autonomous vehicles using a built-in test course. And that seems to be only the start: other technologies Toyota is targeting for development include AI, space rockets, aerial taxis and much, much more.
It’s big, it’s bold and it’s not something you’d expect from a car company. But in a roundtable briefing with reporters following a press conference at CES 2025, Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said that’s exactly the point.
Photo by: Toyota
“Here at CES, I declared that we’re going to transform Toyota into a mobility company,” Toyoda said. “It took five years to reach this Phase One that we’ve announced today. We are standing here at our starting point.”
Photo by: InsideEVs
Toyota Woven City Briefing, CES 2025
The starting point is what Toyota calls a “test course for mobility” due to open this fall. But Toyoda and his team admitted that nobody is quite sure exactly what a “mobility company” is or does, exactly. And that’s part of why the company hopes up to 2,000 people will reside there eventually to help develop future technologies in four distinct areas: energy, mobility, people and energy.
“It’s an opportunity to weave together diverse points of view, talents and abilities, to create a new kind of fabric for our future, a future where we hope not to only move people, but move hearts,” Toyoda said in a news conference.
Photo by: Toyota
Located at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan—although Toyoda said the mountain is only visible for a few months each year—Woven City will be a sprawling campus across 175 acres dedicated to the development of future technologies. And starting this summer, Toyota will begin taking applications from companies and individuals “who need financial support to bring their ideas to life.”
Several “inventors,” as Toyota calls these partner companies, have already signed up to develop technology there. They include Japan’s Daikin Industries, Ltd., the air-conditioning giant; coffee company UCC Japan Co. Ltd; and instant food giant Nissin Food Products.
John Absmeier, the CTO of Woven by Toyota, the automaker’s next-generation technology subsidiary, said those Japanese companies were chosen first but discussions are underway with several others. “We are going to start taking applications and we’ve already entertained over 6,000 inquiries,” Absmeier said. “It’s definitely not just Japanese nationals. It’s multinational population.”
Those chosen at first, Absmeier said, are companies looking to reimagine what kinds of experiences they can deliver in a connected city of the future. One company, for example, specializes in vending machines.
“They’re trying to re-imagine what the experience of vending is,” Absmeier said. “UCC is thinking about coffee experiences in the city, how can they deliver different ways of enjoying food and beverages.”
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Absmeier said that the first parties to join will be Toyota Group employees, followed by startup employees, academics and the broader public. “We want to invite individuals, but also maybe earlier stage companies that have an idea, that have the passion, a good idea and a business plan, but maybe don’t have the capital.” He added that those companies will “come into the city and make [their ideas] more mature.”
Woven City is arguably the biggest and most visible symbol yet of Toyota’s project to transform its traditional car business or get left behind by the rest of the world.
Toyota remains the largest car company in the world by sales volume and is handsomely profitable. But while it does not currently face the headwinds felt by European conglomerates like Volkswagen and Stellantis, it is rapidly losing ground in once-handsomely profitable China—and to rising Chinese automakers who are stealing sales in several markets. Moreover, China’s cars are electrified and boast advanced connected software features, leading Japan’s automakers to scramble to catch up technologically. At least some of the technologies potentially developed at Woven City by new Toyota partners could be used to level the playing field a bit, but having a dedicated testing site for autonomous vehicles will be just as valuable, if not more so.
Absmeier said that Woven City members will have to have some kind of residence status in Japan and could live there for one or two years. The project is especially prioritizing those interested in “achieving zero fatalities by traffic accidents, which is, a big goal of Toyota.”
Perhaps to the chagrin of Toyota’s board and investors, Toyoda insisted the point is not to “make money” with Woven City but to create technologies that make the world better. “At Woven City, we are trying to have a project that will never be completed,” Toyoda said. “That’s because we are trying to create the future. The purpose of this project is not to make money.”
Toyoda said that ultimately, in about five years or so, he wants Woven City to feel like a “normal” city where people live out their daily lives normally—just with tools and technologies uniquely developed there.
“But when you look into the details, there will be various tools provided there that city’s residents are using, and maybe tools that we don’t have today being used inside of the houses, inside of the city, on the roads,” Toyoda said, “all embedded and seeming normal.”
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