Toyota Will Transform a 175-Acre Site In Japan Into a ‘Prototype City of the Future’

At CES on Monday, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said the Japanese auto giant will transform a 175-acre site of a former car factory into a “prototype city of the future” where it can test autonomous vehicles, innovative street design, smart home technology, robotics, and new mobility products on real people who would live there full-time. The Verge reports: The site, which is located at the base of Mount Fuji, will be designed by famed Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. It will house up to 2,000 people, including Toyota employees and their families, and it will be powered by the company’s hydrogen fuel cell technology. [Toyoda said] that the company expects to break ground at the end of 2021. Toyota is calling the site “Woven City,” a reference to weaving together three different types of streets or pathways, each for a specific type of user. One street would be for faster vehicles only. The second would be a mix of lower-speed personal mobility vehicles, like bikes and scooters, as well as pedestrians. And the third would be a park-like promenade for pedestrians only. “These three street types weave together to form an organic grid pattern to help accelerate the testing of autonomy,” the company says. “This is my personal ‘Field of Dream,'” Toyoda added. “‘If you build it, they will come.'” The plan is reminiscent of Sidewalk Labs’ efforts to build a digital city on Toronto’s Eastern waterfront. However, it’s almost certainly going to face less pushback from the local government, as Toyota is a Japanese company and collects considerably less data than Sidewalk Labs’ parent company Alphabet, which has been caught in a battle over information privacy. UPDATE 1/6/20: The story has been updated with additional information.