Can Toyota succeed where Sidewalk Labs failed?

Source: Smart Cities Dive Published: October 19th, 2020

In a high-profile presentation at CES 2020, Toyota announced plans to convert an old factory site in Japan into a prototype "city of the future." The 175-acre Woven City project, to sit at the base of Mt. Fuji, would house some 2,000 residents and will be outfitted with connected infrastructure, clean buildings and artificial intelligence (AI). 

The January announcement was highly touted as a way to test new technologies in a real-life city environment, akin to Alphabet spinoff Sidewalk Labs' former plans for a connected development in Toronto. During a CES session to unveil the Woven City plans, Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda, who jokingly compared himself to Willy Wonka, outlined a 2021 groundbreaking.

"You do know that’s only a year away, right?," Toyoda asked Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, whose firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is a partner on the project. "Ok ... well get going!"

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Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash