Waymo has named Toronto as its first city in Canada, and its cars will start driving the city's streets within days. The Alphabet-owned robotaxi company aims to carry its first public riders there in 2028. The timeline is long because Ontario's rules for autonomous vehicles are years behind its plans. The Toronto pilot will test how Waymo's driverless technology handles snow, ice and a regulator that does not yet allow commercial self-driving service.
The company announced the move on October 16. It said Ontario had approved it to join the province's autonomous vehicle pilot program. Toronto is Waymo's fourth announced market outside the United States, after London, Tokyo and Singapore.
A Slow, Phased Rollout
Nobody will be able to hail a driverless Waymo in Toronto for at least two years. At first, human drivers will be at the wheel. Specialists will build high-definition maps of the city's roads, then trained safety operators will run the cars in autonomous mode so the software can learn local traffic patterns. Waymo will consider fully driverless operation only after that validation work is finished.
In its announcement, Waymo called this a rigorous, phased, safety-first approach. It said the validation period is meant to adapt its system to Toronto's distinct driving conditions. Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana called the expansion into Canada an important milestone in the company's global journey.
Waymo has not said how many vehicles it will deploy at first, what it will charge, or which neighbourhoods will get service first.
A Canadian Supply Chain Behind the Launch
The Toronto plan relies heavily on Canadian partners:
- Element Fleet Management, based in Toronto, will run end-to-end fleet operations, including maintenance, charging and getting vehicles ready for riders. It already supports Waymo in San Diego.
- Magna International, the Canadian auto-parts giant, is Waymo's manufacturing partner.
- CPP Investments, Canada's largest pension fund, is a long-term Waymo investor.
The companies say they will create "hundreds of roles" over time in vehicle maintenance, validation driving, customer service and operations. Jobs are a sensitive issue in Toronto. In April, Mayor Olivia Chow's office told the Toronto Star it would not support Waymo if the service cost jobs. Her office said the company had to show that would not happen.
Accessibility groups, including CNIB, support the launch because driverless cars could help people who cannot drive get around on their own. A grassroots group, Technologists for Democracy, opposes it. The group has raised concerns about data sovereignty, privacy, labour disruption and congestion, and has urged officials to pause the rollout and consult residents.
The Regulatory Gap
The biggest open question is legal. Ontario has allowed automated vehicle testing since 2016 under its pilot regulation and added driverless testing in 2019. But according to Electrek, that regulation is set to be revoked on October 13, 2027, months before Waymo plans to pick up its first paying passenger. The province has not said what will replace it.
Ontario also has no framework yet for a commercial driverless ride-hailing service. At the federal level, Transport Canada has said self-driving vehicles on public roads are limited to temporary pilot projects run by the provinces. In practice, Waymo is committing to a market where the business it wants to run is not yet allowed.
That pattern is familiar. The Toronto Star reported last December that Waymo had been lobbying city hall over bylaws for autonomous driving. In New York City, local politics have so far kept the company's robotaxis off the road.
Why It Matters
Toronto is the first real test of Waymo in Canadian conditions, and winter is a big part of it. Critics say self-driving systems still struggle in heavy traffic and bad weather. Ontario's long winters will put that to the test on a large scale. Denver, which Waymo describes as its first real snow city, is only now coming online in the US. That makes Toronto's mapping and validation phase an important source of cold-weather data.
The announcement also shows how quickly Waymo is expanding. The company says its vehicles have driven more than 400 million kilometres autonomously and have about 95% fewer crashes causing serious injury or worse than human drivers in the cities where it operates. It now handles more than 500,000 paid rides a week across more than a dozen US metros. A first Canadian market adds to an international list that already includes London, Tokyo and Singapore.
Competition is building too. Tesla's Robotaxi runs in seven US cities but has not set a date for riders in any Canadian city. Waymo's early start lets it map Toronto and build local operations while rivals are still looking at the market.
For policymakers, Toronto is now the test case. If Ontario wants paying passengers in driverless cars by 2028, it will need to write commercial rules before its current pilot regulation expires. How fast the province acts may matter as much as how well Waymo's software handles snow.
