VOA · Science & Technology
Intermediate · B1–B2learner speed5:352025-02-26public domain
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01Japanese automaker Toyota says it is building a research center in a city-like setting to test robotics, artificial intelligence, AI, and autonomous vehicle technologies.
02Toyota recently announced it had completed the first part or phase of the center called Woven City.
03It sits near the southern Japanese city of Susono.
04Company officials recently showed off the latest progress to reporters from the Associated Press.
05Daisuke Toyota is an executive for Toyota who is helping lead the project.
06He told the AP that the center was not designed to be a smart city.
07However, it aims to carry out technology research and development and be a test course for mobility.
08The company said Woven City would serve as a living laboratory.
09It aims to test technology systems to support future changes in the movement of people, goods, information, and energy.
10Toyota said the center is meant to be a place where researchers and technology company officials can come together and share ideas.
11It will also seek to establish a community with a shared desire to co-create, develop, and refine new technology products and services.
12Woven City was built on the grounds of a closed Toyota automobile factory.
13The automaker said the project's first phase covers about 47,000 square meters.
14When completed, it will spread out over 294,000 square meters.
15Building operations on Woven City began in 2021.
16All the buildings are connected by underground passageways.
17Among planned testing activities will include self-driving vehicles making waste pickups and completing deliveries around the area.
18Testing operations will center on how people living in cities can best interact with changing technologies.
19Currently, no one lives in Woven City.
20When it opens, officials plan on having about 100 people living there.
21They will be called weavers.
22These are workers employed by Toyota and its partner companies making other products.
23When AP reporters visited the area, Japanese coffee maker UCC was serving hot drinks from a self-driving bus.
24The bus was parked in an area surrounded by still-empty housing.
25Toyota has supported electric vehicle EV technology in the past.
26However, the company is currently involved in a push for hydrogen, the energy choice in Woven City.
27Keisuke Konishi is an automobile expert at Japan's Quick Corporate Valuation Research Center.
28He told the AP Toyota has plans to expand into self-driving vehicle services to compete with Google's Waymo and other large companies.
29Konishi noted the company has the money for such development, even if it means building up a completely new business.
30Toyota has the money to do all that, he said.
31Toyota officials have said they do not expect Woven City to make money, at least not for the first few years.
32Several other futuristic developments have been planned in other areas of the world over the years.
33They have included efforts in Toronto, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and San Francisco, California.
34But those projects are either still being developed or have been canceled.
35I'm Brian Lynn.
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