Akio Toyoda Makes Refined Dig At Elon Musk As Toyota Invests In Rockets

So, automotive firm executives: Who’s bought the larger rocket?

A delicate however apparent dig at Tesla CEO Elon Musk got here from none apart from Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda at CES 2025 yesterday, amid his keynote speech about the Woven Metropolis undertaking in Japan. That growth is a part of Toyota’s aim of transitioning from being a standard automotive firm to 1 targeted on “producing mobility and happiness for all,” as officers put it. 

However as a part of Toyota’s branching out into new areas, it is also investing ¥7 billion ($44 million) into the Japanese personal spaceflight firm Interstellar Applied sciences Inc. That funding comes from the automaker’s know-how division, Woven by Toyota, and as Bloomberg confirmed, Toyota will acquire a seat on Interstellar Applied sciences’ board of administrators. The 2 corporations had beforehand been collaborating in different methods since 2020.

“We imagine that by combining our strengths with these from totally different industries, we can create new merchandise and new companies we might by no means obtain on our personal,” Toyoda mentioned in his speech. “The sky is the restrict.”

As a part of that, “We’re exploring rockets as a result of the way forward for mobility should not be restricted to simply earth,” Toyoda mentioned, “or only one automotive firm, for that matter.” 

Picture by: InsideEVs

Toyota Woven Metropolis Briefing, CES 2025

However even when Interstellar Applied sciences’ flights take off—actually and figuratively—it has an extended option to go to match the presence of Musk’s SpaceX. Final 12 months, SpaceX performed 134 rocket launches, an almost 40% enhance from the 12 months prior. SpaceX has performed extra orbital launches than the remainder of the world mixed and is now primarily the go-to firm for rocket missions. Nonetheless, the demand for personal house launches—together with efforts like satellite tv for pc launches and ultimately even exploration—is predicted to rise considerably within the coming years and a long time. Nonetheless, whereas the U.S. and China cleared the path in launches, different nations like Japan path far behind. 

Picture by: Toyota

“In distinction, Japan performed simply three launches (in 2023), highlighting the necessity for progress in home launch capability,” Interstellar Applied sciences mentioned in a information launch in regards to the Toyota funding. In addition to capital, the house firm mentioned it’ll use Toyota’s manufacturing experience “to transition rocket manufacturing right into a high-quality, cost-effective, and scalable course of.”

For Toyota’s half, the funding in Interstellar Applied sciences represents extra strikes by its Woven R&D unit, $800 million Woven Capital progress fund and Toyota Ventures early-stage capital agency to do extra than simply automobiles. These have included investments in aerial taxi firm Joby, New York-based electrical rideshare and charging firm Revel and robotic supply firm Nuro. Quickly, it needs so as to add as many as 2,000 residents, together with “inventors” and startup workers, to work and reside in Woven Metropolis. 

As Tesla has confirmed already, no automotive firm needs to simply be a automotive firm sooner or later. And possibly if this Toyota funding goes nicely sufficient, Musk could have somewhat competitors on the market among the many stars. 

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