Woven City is a privacy nightmare but could be helpful to an OEM desperate to be more.

Residents of Toyota's Woven City can ride around the place on three-wheeled "Swakes" or take the e-Palatte buses. Or walk, since it's quite compact right now.

Credit:

Toyota

Residents of Toyota's Woven City can ride around the place on three-wheeled "Swakes" or take the e-Palatte buses. Or walk, since it's quite compact right now.

Credit:

Toyota

At the Consumer Electronics Show in 2020, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda pledged to build a city of the future, a place where researchers, engineers, and scientists could live and work together. It was framed as the start of a transformation for the world’s largest car company, moving it toward becoming a fully fledged mobility company.

Six months ago, after Toyota spent an estimated $10 billion to build an urban paradise atop a disused factory, the first residents moved in.…