Welcome to Woven City: The World’s First Robot City

Welcome to Woven City: The World’s First Robot City

Toyota has launched one of its most ambitious experiments to date. Known as Woven City, the automaker’s robotic city is a prototype of mobility, smart infrastructure, and sustainability.

Located on the grounds of the former Higash-Fuji plant at the base of Mount Fuji in the Shizuoka Prefecture, Woven City is a new kind of experiment. After ten years in development and five years of construction, it’s set to launch in the fall.

What Is Woven City?

Woven City is the world’s first robot city, but it’s also much more than that. The smart city represents Toyota’s planned transformation from a conventional automaker to a mobility-focused transportation company.

At the core of the Woven City concept is Toyota’s e-Palette. E-Palette was initially designed as an autonomous EV platform introduced at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. It’s these vehicles that will form Woven City’s primary transportation system, so don’t expect to be seeing any used cars here.

Every aspect of Woven City is carefully planned, including its transportation systems. Each surface road features three lanes. The first is for pedestrians, the second is for relatively slow mobility devices such as bicycles, and the third is for autonomous vehicles.

Woven City’s Ambitious Infrastructure Plan

It would be a mistake to assume that Toyota’s impressive city-scale experiment is just about autonomous EVs. The overall purpose is to test autonomous systems, more generally, in a fully controlled urban system.

The system is designed to support resilience and sustainability, providing energy through a hydrogen fuel cell grid and solar power rather than conventional means. Water recycling and eco-waste management systems complement the city’s power infrastructure.

Woven City’s Intended Residents

Initially, Woven City will host 100 residents. Most of them will be Toyota employees and their families. However, Toyota plans to rapidly increase the population to 360 during its initial Phase 1 and ultimately achieve a long-term goal of 2,000 residents.

There are two key groups of people populating Woven City. The first is the “Inventors.” People in this group design and test new technologies. Those technologies are then tested by the “Weavers,” who provide feedback on their daily use.

Eventually, Toyota will open Woven City to tourists. The company’s ambitious plan involves allowing the public to access the site sometime in 2026.

Daily Life in Woven City and Beyond

Every structure, street, and service within Woven City is equipped with monitors and sensors that enable comprehensive data collection. Within this framework, homes incorporate robotics and AI to optimize daily life, improving residents’ health and managing their energy consumption more efficiently.

In addition to providing a testing ground for mobility-focused technologies, Toyota’s robotic city also has a second goal. The company’s long-term strategy is to create a model smart city that can be scaled and altered to fit different geographies.

Ideally, the company wants Woven City to serve as a strategic template for different nations wrestling with the future of urban planning. Daily life in the experimental city reflects this fact, and the residents will demonstrate how public-private partnerships can generate and incubate innovative ideas.

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