Toyota has gone all in on the future with its Woven City project, a purpose-built high-tech village tucked away on the grounds of a former factory near Mount Fuji. This is a full-on experimental playground for tomorrow’s mobility, smart homes, robotics, and even self-flying taxis.
The first 360 employees and their families have already moved into hydrogen-powered homes, built with a nod to traditional Japanese wood craftsmanship but rigged out with next-level tech. They're called “weavers,” a nod to Toyota’s origins as a loom maker, and their daily lives will be the testing ground for a raft of breakthroughs, from autonomous electric vehicles to robot pets and drones meant to escort residents safely home at night.
Toyota’s chairman Akio Toyoda calls Woven City a “test course for the future,” where technologies transition from lab concepts to real-world utilities. It’s the kind of hands-on innovation rarely seen outside sci-fi films or high-budget R&D labs. The city is designed with three separate types of streets, dedicated lanes for fast autonomous vehicles, shared spaces for pedestrians and slow personal mobility devices, and green linear parks, all woven together to encourage real human interaction.
Residents will test-drive not only Toyota’s existing electric vehicles but a slew of new e-mobility options like hoverboards and futuristic robotaxis that will cruise aerial routes on fully autonomous flights. Inside the homes, smart AI acts as a personal assistant and household helper, folding shirts, prepping meals, even helping take care of the elderly.
Connectivity is the backbone, with every building and vehicle linked through state-of-the-art sensors and a dedicated digital operating system. The whole city will run on sustainable energy, including hydrogen fuel cells and solar power, proving that eco-friendly can be high-tech and livable.
Woven City is a bold vision of how future urban living could work, where technology enhances community rather than isolates, and progress is something you experience in everyday life, not just on a screen. If this sounds like a glimpse of where we’re headed, that’s because it is.