After Akio Toyoda, Toyota's CEO and president, announced he would step down on Thursday, he shared his advice for his successor and his business philosophy.
Photography by Yoshikazu Tsuno | Gamma Ravo | Getty Images
las vegas — toyota motor The company's chairman, Akio Toyoda, said Monday that the company is exploring the development and production of orbital rockets.
The automaker, through its Woven by Toyota mobile business, is investing 7 billion yen ($44.4 million) in Interstellar Technologies Inc., a private Japanese spaceflight company that develops satellite launch vehicles.
Toyoda, the former CEO and scion of the automaker, said there should not be “just one car company” – referring to… Teslawhose CEO Elon Musk also leads SpaceX, is developing such technologies.
“We are also exploring rockets, because the future of mobility should not be limited to just Earth or just one car company,” Toyoda said during a press conference for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Interstellar Technologies, founded in 2013, has made seven launches of its small suborbital MOMO rockets, which reached space for the first time in 2019. The startup has yet to deploy a satellite into orbit, with plans to develop a line of larger ZERO and DECA rockets. To deliver spacecraft.
Toyota said the company expects to leverage its experience in mass production of vehicles to produce rockets using Interstellar Technologies.
In the Japanese launch market, Toyota competes with Mitsubishi, whose Mitsubishi Heavy Industries subsidiary developed and launched the H3 series of rockets for the Japanese space agency JAXA. The Mitsubishi H3 rocket, which debuted several years behind schedule, was supposed to be priced competitively with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, which dominate the current global launch market.
Woven city
Toyota also on Monday announced the completion of the first phase of Woven City, including housing for residents and inventors the automaker is inviting to come to the site.
Announced five years ago by Toyoda at CES as a “model city of the future,” Woven by Toyota is located on a 175-acre site at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan to test and develop new emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles.
The Chairman of the Board said that Woven City's mission is not necessarily to make money, but rather to serve as a testing course and experimental proving ground for future technologies.