Waymo has named Toronto as its first Canadian market. It announced the plan in a blog post on 16 October.
Ontario has approved the company to take part in its automated vehicle pilot programme. No commercial service is launching yet, and the programme’s terms and duration were not set out.
Waymo will follow its usual four steps. Drivers map the streets by hand, then cars test autonomously with a safety operator aboard, then the operator leaves the driver’s seat, and finally the public can ride. None of the steps has a date.
Element Fleet Management, a Toronto company, will manage the fleet. Waymo expects the partnership to support hundreds of jobs across maintenance, validation driving, customer service and operations. Co-chief executive Tekedra Mawakana called it an important milestone in global expansion. The jobs figure is an expectation, not a commitment.
The scale behind it is real, and it is recent: expansion began in March 2025 in Austin, followed by Atlanta. Waymo now runs robotaxi services in 15 US cities and is testing in London and Tokyo. Two years ago it had three commercial markets and no freeway driving.
What is unanswered is the hard part. There is no fleet size, no word on freeways, and Toronto’s winters will be the most demanding conditions Waymo has tried to handle. Waymo says it will test how the cars cope with the weather. Until it takes the operator out of the seat in the snow, the announcement is a plan.
