Waymo is coming to Toronto, its first Canadian city, with robotaxi rides targeted for 2028

Waymo on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, said it is laying the groundwork for a fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Toronto, starting with human-driven mapping and testing in the coming days and aiming to welcome its first riders in 2028.

Toronto is the hard-mode exam Waymo keeps signing up for: snow, slush, streetcars and a brand-new regulatory map to clear in another country. Two years of human-driven mapping before a single paid trip says Waymo knows it. But the pattern is now unmistakable — Singapore 2028, Tokyo 2027, Toronto 2028 — Alphabet is turning a Phoenix science project into a global ride-hail map, one winter city at a time.

Waymo announced on Oct. 16, 2026, that it is heading to Canada, preparing a fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Toronto with the goal of welcoming first riders in 2028. It is Waymo's first deployment in Canada. A robotaxi is a self-driving taxi hailed in an app. Fully autonomous here means the car carries passengers without a human driving the trip. Those lines are Waymo's. The post does not say Ontario or Toronto has approved driverless service.

In the coming days, Waymo vehicles will appear on Toronto streets driving manually. The phased approach starts with high-definition mapping and testing with trained autonomous specialists behind the wheel, to adapt the Waymo Driver — Waymo's name for the sensors and software that drive the car — to Toronto conditions. Those lines are Waymo's.

Element Fleet Management, headquartered in Toronto, will provide end-to-end fleet management. Waymo and partners plan to invest in hundreds of roles over time in fleet maintenance, validation driving, customer service, and operations. Those lines are Waymo's. The post does not print a fleet size, a fare, or a service-area map.

Waymo cites existing Canadian ties: long-term investor Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and manufacturing partner Magna International. Those names are Waymo's.

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said: "Expanding into Canada marks an important milestone in Waymo's global journey." Element CEO Laura Dottori-Attanasio is named on the same post. Mawakana's quotation is hers, as Waymo prints it.

Waymo's own safety claim: data from over 400 million fully autonomous kilometres shows 95% fewer — 20 times fewer — crashes involving serious injury or worse compared with human drivers in the cities where it operates. Those figures are Waymo's, not an independent audit.

Accessibility partners named on the post: BALANCE for Blind Adults, CNIB, Community Living Toronto, Connected Canadians, and Epilepsy Ontario. Sign-up for updates is at waymo.com/waymo-in-canada. Those names are Waymo's.

The picture is Waymo's official "Hello Toronto!" launch graphic: a white Waymo-branded Jaguar I-PACE robotaxi with roof sensors in front of the Toronto skyline and CN Tower. It is the company's photograph from the announcement. The frame does not print a calendar date.

In plain terms, Waymo said on Friday that Toronto is its first Canadian city: human-driven mapping starts in the coming days, Element Fleet Management will run the fleet, and paid robotaxi rides are aimed at 2028. The company says it will add hundreds of local jobs over time. It did not print a fleet size, a price, a service area, or a driverless permit.