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Japanese automaker Toyota is “researching missiles,” CEO Akio Toyoda says It was announced on stage at CES 2025while hinting at the idea of moving people through space.
Toyoda did not provide any details explaining what he meant. But he showed an image on stage of a rocket developed by Interstellar Technologies, a private Japanese space company working on a small launch vehicle designed to launch satellites into space.
Toyoda was on hand to explain how he sees his company’s myriad technologies as “invention by kakezan” or “invention by reproduction.”
“The sky’s the limit when it comes to what’s possible when you work together,” he said. After a dramatic pause, he continued, “And speaking of the sky, we’re also investigating rockets. Because the future of mobility shouldn’t just be limited to Earth or just one car company” – a possible dig at Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX.
A space flight is a wild idea to tease at the end of a press conference, although there is some precedent for such a move. Sony surprise-announced that he is working on an electric car five years ago at CES and barely made the news for more than a few minutes of stage time.
Toyota, meanwhile, has come under fire for years for its overly cautious stance on electric vehicle development. Not only does this seem like a step forward as major automakers scale back their ambitious plans for electrification, but perhaps Toyota was just eyeing a very different prize — space.
