Waymo is bringing its robotaxis to Canada. The Alphabet-owned company will begin testing its self-driving vehicles on Toronto's streets, TechCrunch reported on October 16, marking the autonomous-driving leader's first expansion north of the border.
The Toronto launch is the latest step in Waymo's steady geographic expansion beyond its U.S. service cities. Canada's largest city offers a demanding test environment — snow, streetcars, dense downtown construction and Ontario's regulatory framework all present challenges the company's California, Arizona and Texas operations have yet to face in the same combination.
The move lands in the middle of a busy week for the autonomous-driving industry, coming as Mercedes-Benz and Volvo both deepened their own automated-driving partnerships with NVIDIA. The question for Toronto is how quickly testing gives way to a commercial driverless service, and what the city's regulators demand before that happens.
Waymo has not announced a timeline for paid rides in Canada. For now, Toronto's streets are about to get a new class of vehicle — with no one behind the wheel.
