The automotive giant wants to give a whole new meaning to the term "global village".
Japanese auto giant Toyota said it will transform the 70-hectare site of a former car factory into a "prototype city of the future" called Woven city. It will be a real town that will host autonomous vehicles, innovative design roads, new home automation technologies, robotics and other mobility products.
Residents? Real people who will live there full time. The city of the future, which will be designed by the famous Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, will initially host 2000 residents and will come to life in 2021, said the CEO AkioToyoda in a Toyota release issued to CES2020.
Bjarke Ingels is a star architect sui generis: he certainly has the design of architectural works such as the World Trade Center, but he was also chosen (perhaps above all) for having built the Lego House in Denmark. The ability to create "microworlds" by thinking about all infrastructural aspects must have been decisive.
Toyota, in other words, not only wants to demonstrate new technologies on a small scale, but develop an entire city according to its urban and technological criteria. Change the history of urban planning in some way.
Toyoda gave the name of Woven city, the "intertwined" city, with the place that will rise on the slopes of Mount Fuji.
CES is packed with companies pitching technologies to connect smart cars to city contexts, but the “interwoven city” will be the first settlement built from the ground up to achieve this. People, buildings and vehicles will all be connected with integrated sensors, he said Toyoda.
The city plan of the future
The Woven City urban-technological project will include several innovations. First of all in transport: there will be three types of roads for different uses. One will be for cars and trucks, another for low-speed vehicles and pedestrians, and a third for pedestrians only, according to a Toyota news release. The three types of streets "intertwine" (hence the name Woven City) to form a harmonious and fluid fabric.
Obviously for transport Toyota plans to use fleets of its autonomous electric vehicles e-Palette. Seen for the first time at CES 2018, e-Palette vehicles are designed to be used interchangeably according to their functions, from car sharing to delivery services. According to Toyota, only zero-emission autonomous vehicles will be allowed on the city's main arteries.
Woven City residents will also get home robots and indoor sensors, which will be able to take care of basic tasks around the house and monitor health, respectively. The automaker is currently developing a line of home care robots and has placed prototypes in the homes of disabled or elderly people.
All buildings will be made of wood to reduce the city's carbon footprint, with energy generated by a mix of solar roofs and hydrogen fuel cells.
Toyota plans to populate Woven City with employees, their families and retired couples. The automaker is also opening the project to all companies that want to join and even employees of those companies will be able to move.
