Japanese automaker Toyota is “exploring rockets,” chairman Akio Toyoda just announced on stage at CES 2025, while hinting at the idea of moving people through space.
Toyoda did not offer any details explaining what he meant. But he showed a rendering on stage of a rocket designed by Interstellar Technologies, a private Japanese spaceflight company that’s working on a small launch vehicle made to put satellites into space.
Toyoda was in the middle of explaining how he views his company’s myriad technologies as “invention by kakezan,” or “invention by multiplication.”
“When it comes to what’s possible when you work together, the sky’s the limit,” he said. After a dramatic pause, he continued: “And speaking of the sky, we’re exploring rockets, too. Because the future of mobility shouldn’t be limited to just Earth, or just one car company” — a possible dig at Tesla.
Spaceflight is a wild idea to tease at the end of a press conference, though a move like this has some precedence. Sony surprise-announced it was working on an electric car five years ago at CES and barely gave the news more than a few minutes of stage time.
Toyota, meanwhile, has been lambasted for years for its overly cautious stance on developing electric vehicles. Not only does that now look like a prescient move as big automakers scale back their ambitious plans for electrification, maybe Toyota simply had its eyes on a much different prize — space.
