Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen… and thanks so much for joining us.
As evident from everything you see and hear at CES… virtually every industry is trying to predict the future.
And from my perspective… no one wants a crystal ball as much as the automotive industry.
Everyone wants to know…
When will cars truly drive themselves?
When will they know what I’m thinking?
When will they fly?
And more importantly… when will cars actually transform into giant robots?!
Now… we might not be working on a Toyota Transformer… but we are focused on the future of Connectivity… Autonomy… Shared Mobility… and Electrification… or CASE… as we call it.
In addition… we are pursuing the future of… Artificial Intelligence, human mobility, robotics, materials science, and sustainable energy.
Currently… we research and test this technology in various labs around the world… such as the Toyota Research Institute and Toyota Connected.
But it occurred to us… what if we had the opportunity to do it all in one place… in a real-life environment… instead of a simulated one?
This was on our mind when we were making plans to close a factory in Japan… and we were wondering what to do with this soon to be available land near Mt. Fuji.
We considered creating another testing site for autonomy like M-City in Michigan… but then we had… one of those A-ha! moments… you know… like Oprah does!
We thought… why not build a real city… and have real people live in it… and safely test all kinds of technology?
Well… Ladies and gentlemen… that’s what I’m here to announce today.
On this 175 acre site… in Higashi-Fuji, Japan… we have decided to build a prototype town of the future… where people live… work… play… and participate in a living laboratory.
Imagine… a fully controlled site… that would allow researchers… engineers… and scientists… the opportunity to freely test technology… such as… autonomy, mobility as a service, robotics, smart home connected technology… AI… and more… in a real world environment.
This would be a truly unique opportunity to create an entire community… or “city”… from the ground up… and allow us to build an infrastructure of the future that is connected… digital… and sustainable… powered by Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell technology.
It would be a chance to collaborate with other business partners… and to invite all interested scientists and researchers… from around the world… to come work on their own projects… for a few months at a time… or however long they please.
This was our idea when we called upon the legendary… Danish architect… Bjarke Ingels to help bring our vision to life.
Bjarke and his team… the Bjarke Ingels Group… also known as BIG… have created some of the most exciting and ground breaking new architecture currently being built around the world… from sky-scrapers in Vancouver and New York… to the Number 2 World Trade Center… to Google’s new headquarters… to museums for companies like Lego… to communities of the future on water… and even on Mars.
Our collaboration and friendship was immediate and intense… and we bonded over our mutual inability to speak English without an accent.
After 8 months of research… work… and collaboration… this is our vision: