Robots, artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles. A project from the world’s largest automaker is being touted as a kind of living tech lab. Toyota Motor Corporation may challenge the term “smart city,” yet this metropolis comes pretty close. Is it an example of how city life will operate in the future?
Japanese automaker Toyota is building what it calls Woven City. It’s constructed on the grounds of a shuttered auto plant. The city’s name honors Toyota’s start as a maker of automatic textile looms.
The Woven City website says Toyota intends to bring together people who will “create, develop, and refine innovative products and services.”
Woven City’s tech focus will be on transportation. So far, Toyota lags in developing electric vehicles. Instead, Toyota has pushed hydrogen, the energy of choice in Woven City.
Auto analyst Keisuke Konishi believes Toyota wants to compete with Google’s self-driving Waymo, so the company built an entire complex to make that happen.
In Woven City, researchers, inventors, residents, and visitors can share ideas. They’ll also “interact seamlessly with new technologies” in their everyday lives. Those exchanges will occur in a place very like “a real city.”
The first phase of construction is finished. At 506,000 square feet—about the size of five baseball fields, the city lies at the base of Mount Fuji. When complete, Woven City will sprawl over three million square feet with underground passageways connecting all buildings.
Woven City engineers will test self-driving transport of people and goods in the city-like setting. Dry cleaning, food, garbage, and bus services are up and running. All use robot delivery. Companies like instant noodle producer Nissin, air conditioner maker Daikin, and coffee company UCC have already signed up to join in Toyota’s research.
Residents, called “Weavers,” will live and work in Woven City. At first, the number of Weavers will cap at 100. Weavers will use emerging tech to give feedback to inventors and creators as well.
Woven City claims to offer a safe, real-life testing ground for future uses of automated driving services. Current Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda, the founder’s great-grandson, says the hope for Woven City is to “imagine and improve how all of us live in the future.”
The Bible advises against both worry or pride about the future. (Matthew 6:34, Proverbs 27:1) God alone knows what tomorrow holds. In Christ, we may work to advance His kingdom on Earth while we rest in the knowledge that our future is secure—with or without technology.
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. — Proverbs 27:1
Why? Planning for the future is a wise strategy—as long as we recognize that our futures lie safely in God’s hands.
Recommended Reading: For more on futuristic worlds, see Apprentice by Kristen Young.
