Five years ago, Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda went to CES to share with the world his “personal field of dreams” — a plan to build a prototype city on a 175-acre site at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan, where people would live and work amongst all of Toyota’s projects, including autonomous vehicle technology, robotics, smart home-connected technology, and AI.
Toyoda will return to the annual tech trade show in Las Vegas this year to finally reveal his “living laboratory” called Woven City. The Toyota press conference, in which Chairman Toyoda will have a starring role, will be held at 1 p.m. PT/4 p.m. ET on January 6 during CES media day. The presentation will be live streamed on the company’s website.
In a video that teases the upcoming showcase, Toyoda dons a hard hat and safety vest as he heads into a modern multi-story building. He arrives on an upper floor and then removes the protective covering of the window, revealing Mount Fuji in the background and exclaiming “Welcome to Woven City!”
Details are slim about exactly what will be revealed. TechCrunch, which was at the initial announcement in 2020, will be watching to see how startups will be incorporated into Woven City and whether Toyota followed through on its plans to build a fully connected ecosystem powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
