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• The Woven City in Japan is Toyota’s biggest urban development venture yet, covering more than 175 acres of smart infrastructure and powered by hydrogen. 
• Since 2025, more than 400 residents have occupied the city, where they actively test mobility technology, AI-powered living, design options based on sidelined data, among other real-time applications.

A Living Laboratory at the Foot of Mount Fuji

At the base of Japan’s Mount Fuji, Toyota has quietly launched one of the most ambitious urban experiments in recent memory. Spread across 175 acres of former factory grounds in Susono City, the is designed as a fully connected ecosystem powered by hydrogen fuel cells, where residents live, work, and interact with advanced technologies daily.

Moving from Vision to Reality

Woven City differs from purely theoretical urban models and virtual simulations; it is indeed real. The groundbreaking ceremony was held in February 2021. Since then, Toyota has steadily progressed with construction and early testing. This project not only serves as a technological showcase; it is a clear indicator that the way a legacy auto manufacturer views itself within the larger context of cities, data, and sustainable living is shifting.

A Community Built to Learn

Toyota envisions Woven City as a “living laboratory”, where approximately 360 residents—primarily Toyota personnel and their families, as well as researchers and retirees—interact with new modes of transportation, artificial intelligence systems, and robotic helpers. Over time, this figure is expected to grow into the thousands, allowing the brand to test and fine-tune everything from transit systems to energy distribution in real-world scenarios.

Streets with Purpose

The city’s structure has been developed around three types of streets: one for autonomous cars, another for personal mobility such as bikes and scooters, and a third for walkers. This tiered approach gives a live meaning to Toyota’s very essence of human-centric design. Sensors collect data everywhere, systems adjust in real time, and technologies get enhanced according to people’s living styles.

An Evolution in Brand Identity

From the viewpoint of the Toyota brand, Woven City represents a manifestation of its age-old commitment to the values of innovation and quality. The company had cemented its reputation based on reliability and fuel efficiency, especially after launching the Prius in the late 1990s; however, the new millennium requires something more from us: a response to climate change, urban congestion, and the digital transformation of everyday life. Woven City becomes the narrative centrepiece that connects Toyota’s past achievements with its long-term goals.

Why Hydrogen Powers Everything

One of the city’s defining features is its use of hydrogen as a primary energy source. Toyota has long championed hydrogen fuel cell technology, particularly through its Mirai vehicles, which have found a modest but persistent market in Japan and parts of California. Hydrogen has been a point of criticism regarding scalability and cost-efficiency, and yet Toyota continues to champion the technology, especially on the infrastructural scale. Woven City offers an opportunity to build a true integrated hydrogen-powered environment from the ground up, which is almost impossible in the context of existing urban areas.

Building with Culture and Sustainability in Mind

Buildings in Woven City are constructed primarily of wood using Japanese joinery techniques, giving the buildings dignity while being robotically produced in modern ways. This approach expresses Toyota’s respect for cultural heritage and embraces environmental sustainability. For the houses, AI-based sensor devices are inside to monitor the residents’ health and activity levels, with robots assisting with everyday tasks such as grocery carrying or supporting people with mobility issues.

Design for Walkability and Data Integration

The city’s layout, designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, also prioritises green space, air quality, and walkability. The people of the city may use clean open spaces traversed with the digital infrastructure that allows for a seamless blend of offline and online worlds. The existence of this city joining streets, Ì첩ÈüʹÙÍøs, devices, and humans through data injected the idea of a “woven” metropolis.

A Mobility Company in the Making

By constructing this city, Toyota is not merely dabbling in urban development. It’s fundamentally reshaping its brand identity. No longer just a car company, Toyota is positioning itself as a mobility solutions provider. The shift was formalised when Akio Toyoda, the company’s former CEO, introduced the concept in 2020 at CES in Las Vegas, calling it his “personal field of dreamsâ€�.

From Data to Product Development

In practical terms, this means that Toyota can now generate its urban data to support future product development. Everything from traffic flow to energy consumption is monitored, offering Toyota insights that no traditional market research could match. These insights will directly influence how the brand develops its next generation of autonomous vehicles, connected services, and even Ì첩ÈüʹÙÍø appliances.

Collaborating for a Connected Future

Toyota’s cooperation in Woven City reflects a broader collaborative mindset. The group shaping the infrastructure includes IT giants such as Cisco and Panasonic, as well as real estate developer Mitsubishi Estate. This enables Toyota to create a shared ecosystem that promotes not only product innovation but also the development of standards for smart cities around the world.

A National Strategy in Alignment

Public policy and regulation play supportive roles, with Japan’s government giving a push to smart city initiatives in line with Society 5.0. Toyota, then, benefits from a certain freedom owing to direct alignment with national goals in testing experimental technologies, whereas regulatory hurdles might otherwise have been quite tough to overcome.

Slow Scaling with High Impact

Woven City does have a small population at present, but being regarded as scalable, Toyota can expand its residential and experimental base as much as it requires. The company announced in 2023 that as the infrastructure matures, more employees and their families will move into the area. This slow and controlled scaling ensures that the company can appropriately oversee the operations while producing sufficient data.

Built-In Resilience

Another important consideration is the city’s potential for resilience. Woven City is outfitted with redundant power, communication, and mobility systems, making it a perfect environment for stress testing disaster response plans. In Japan, where earthquakes and natural calamities are common, incorporating resilience into the urban fabric is not a choice. Toyota sees this as another vertical of R&D, intersecting with safety, logistics, and public service.

Healthcare Integration at Ì첩ÈüʹÙÍø

The integration of healthcare is also significant. Smart Ì첩ÈüʹÙÍøs are equipped with sensors that can track vital signs and activity levels, enabling preventive care and early detection of health issues. For an ageing population—nearly 29% of Japan’s citizens are over 65—this holds transformative potential. Toyota, which already operates a life support robot division, stands to gain not only technological insights but social relevance in this space.

Woven City in 2025

By mid-2025, Woven City had passed the early phases of construction to enter an intense period of evaluation and incremental scaling. Roughly 400 residents now occupy smart Ì첩ÈüʹÙÍøs in the city, with an increasing number from the ranks of Toyota and affiliated partners in terms of research staff. The basic city infrastructure is operational: autonomous shuttle services, AI-integrated housing, and a hydrogen-powered energy grid. Internal tests are carried out on the mobility-as-a-service platform and Ì첩ÈüʹÙÍø health monitoring, supported by ongoing collaborations with universities and robotics firms.

Toyota’s in-house data from the first two years of operation has led to updates in autonomous driving algorithms used in its e-Palette vehicles. These vehicles are currently running in limited loops throughout the city, with an average safety intervention rate of less than 0.02% per 1,000 km travelled. Toyota has equally asserted that, given the adoption of adaptive distribution systems in 2024, there has been an 18% increase in household hydrogen use efficiency. While open access to the city is still limited, guided tours and academic visits are now arranged regularly, considering expansion beyond just a dedicated research division and an education centre for developing next-generation smart city curricula.

Woven City is no longer a mere blueprint testbed; it indeed feeds directly into Toyota’s product pipelines and long-term brand direction, iterated with deeper conscious acknowledgement of connected services, AI-featured vehicle applications, and ecologically friendly mobility solutions emanating directly from this experiment.

A Story That Speaks for Itself

The existence of Woven City speaks volumes from the perspective of branding. It changes the perception away from the traditional industry and into a futuristic, adaptable ambience. Toyota does not need to advertise or launch anything to make clear its vision: it lets Woven City quietly, steadily, and credibly tell its story.

Expanding the Dialogue

As Toyota continues to open up parts of the city to public and academic cooperation, the ripple effect is expected to spread well beyond Japan. Woven City provides a workable model for urban planners, policymakers, tech developers, and business leaders, not of a flawless city, but of a process-orientated one in which experimentation and refining are continuous.

It also serves as a reminder that the future of branding may not be in campaigns but rather in infrastructure—the physical and digital worlds that brands choose to create and inhabit.