The incredible new £8bn city full of robot cars set to welcome first residents
Woven City has been dubbed a 'living laboratory' for car giant Toyota and others to experiment with new technologies, including AI, automated vehicles and robotics.
A futuristic £8billion city featuring driverless cars and robots is almost ready to welcome its first residents. Situated in the shadow of Mount Fuji, Japan, Woven City is a "living laboratory" backed by car giant Toyota to test driverless vehicles.
The first inhabitants are set to move in by the end of this year so experts can collect data on how people will move around the city, a focus of which is mobility.
Locals will move into "smart" homes typically made of wood, powered mostly by hydrogen and featuring solar panels.
Toyota president Akio Toyoda has said of the project: "Building a complete city from the ground up, even on a small scale like this, is a unique opportunity to develop future technologies."
Under the plans, Woven City is split into three zones: pedestrian only areas; roads for autonomous vehicles and routes for active travel options such as bicycles.
Toyota teamed up with international architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) for the city, where families, retirees and inventors are expected to move in this year.
BIG has been behind some remarkable projects, including VIA 57 West in New York, LEGO House in Denmark and VM Houses in Copenhagen.
Woven City will cover 708,000 square metres and is being built on the former site of Toyota’s Higashi-Fuji Plant which closed four years ago.
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That plant was replaced by one in the Tohoku region of northeastern part Japan which was severely impacted by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Toyota announced the closed Higashi-Fuji site would become Woven City in 2020, with ground broken the following year.
Under the plans, researchers and businesses from around the world will be able to pursue projects in personal mobility, driverless technology, artificial intelligence and robotics.
The city is named in honour of Toyota's founder, Sakichi Toyoda, who invented the automatic loom to make weaving easier for his mother.