Toyota builds smart city in Japan with eye on self-driving R&D

'Woven City' will repurpose old plant into living lab for mobility and other technologies

20210223N Woven City

Woven City will be built on the site of a former Toyota plant near Mount Fuji. (Image from Woven City Facebook account)

MAYUMI HIROSAWA and MASAHISA YUZAWA, Nikkei staff writers

NAGOYA, Japan -- Toyota Motor officially broke ground Tuesday on a futuristic city to serve as a test bed for technologies ranging from cutting-edge cars to robotics and artificial intelligence.

Woven City -- a nod to Toyota's origin as a loom manufacturer -- will feature three types of streets: one for automated driving, another for pedestrians, and a third for users of personal mobility devices.

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