Toyota Motor is moving into the space industry with a nearly $45 million investment – saying there should be more than just “one car company” exploring rocket launches.
On Monday during CES 2025, the major tech trade show in Las Vegas with all the latest gadgets, Chairman Akio Toyoda revealed the carmaker is investing $44.4 million, or 7 billion yen, into Interstellar Technologies, a private Japanese spaceflight company.
“We are exploring rockets too, because the future of mobility shouldn’t be limited to just earth or just one car company, for that matter,” Toyoda, the automaker’s former chief executive, said on Monday – referencing Tesla, its billionaire CEO Elon Musk and his SpaceX venture.
Toyota shares jumped 1.4% Tuesday morning.
The partnership between Toyota’s Woven by Toyota brand and Interstellar is an attempt to meet the growing demand for small satellite launches – as well as boost Japan’s launch dominance, the spaceflight company said in a statement.
In 2023, the US conducted 116 satellite launches and China 63 – while Japan conducted just three launches in the same year, Interstellar added.
Woven by Toyota CEO Hajime Kumabe said the company hopes to leverage its mass-production capabilities to “advance rocket production and further drive mobility transformation.”
Interstellar, which was founded in 2013, has led 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 in orbit, but it has plans to develop larger rockets ZERO and DECA — an orbital class launch vehicle and a heavy lift vehicle — to “meet the demands of the 2030s,” according to its website.
In the Japanese market, Toyota is going head-to-head with Mitsubishi.
The carmaker’s subsidiary Mitsubishi Heavy Industries developed and launched the H3 series of rockets for JAXA, the country’s space agency.
Mitsubishi’s H3 rocket, which was made for use in government-funded missions, launched several years behind schedule.
MHI hopes the rocket will be able to gain orders for launches from private-sector and international clients – though that makes it a direct competitor of SpaceX’s market-dominant Falcon 9 rockets.
On Monday at CES 2025, Toyota also revealed the completion of the first phase of Woven City – its “prototype city of the future” first announced five years ago.
The 175-acre site located at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan now includes housing for residents and invite-only investors.
The automaker’s chairman said the point of Woven City is not to make money, but to act as a test course for emerging technologies like autonomous vehicles.
