Toyota has finally opened the doors of its long-awaited experimental city-laboratory, Woven City, located at the foot of Mount Fuji — five years after the initial announcement. The first 300 residents are now living inside the corporation’s dream of total autonomy.
In this “mobility playground,” Toyota is testing everything: self-driving shuttles, nonstop robotic deliveries, smart homes serving as living laboratories, and AI companions that learn from every human movement. The streets are patrolled by e-Palette autonomous vehicles, small EVs, and personal mobility robots, while inside homes, researchers explore how humans and machines can coexist — including robotic pets studying emotional connections between people and technology.
For Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, Woven City represents the company’s transformation from a traditional car manufacturer into a global mobility powerhouse. The plan is ambitious: by 2026, the city will host around 2,000 residents and open to tourists, becoming a fully operational hub of human-technology integration.
Why does it matter? While Tesla fights software battles and Waymo maps every curb, Toyota focuses on how people actually live with autonomous technologies — testing them in real-life conditions, not just simulations or garages. Woven City might be the city of the future, or perhaps the most expensive focus group experiment ever built.
In brief: Tech World Highlights
- China has overtaken the U.S. and the rest of the world in factory automation, installing nearly 300,000 new robots last year and bringing its total to more than 2 million, according to a new report.
- Beijing’s Horizon Robotics raised about $821 million through a secondary share offering in Hong Kong, issuing 639 million shares at HK$9.99 each to fund international expansion.
- NYK Line expanded its partnership with Neptune Robotics to introduce robotic hull cleaning across its global fleet, aiming for major fuel savings and decarbonization of the maritime sector.
- Researchers have developed an AI system that builds on past emotional experiences while learning new ones, making robots more emotionally aware in human interactions.
- Hyundai’s air taxi startup Supernal lost its Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Safety Officer, and Chief of Staff just weeks after pausing the program and losing both its CEO and CTO.
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