Head of Canadian autonomous vehicle group sees benefits in the move, but the ride-share company will have to convince governments on safety

Waymo vehicles are set to begin appearing on Toronto streets as the self-driving car company prepares to launch a driverless ride-hailing service in the city in 2028.

The California-based company, owned by Google parent, Alphabet, announced Friday that Toronto will be its first Canadian market.

Its website says Waymo vehicles will be on Toronto streets “in the coming days.”

Waymo’s cars — initially all-electric Jaguar I-Pace SUVs — will first be driven manually in the city to build maps of local streets and test the technology in Toronto’s conditions before going fully autonomous.

The company is partnering with Toronto-headquartered Element Fleet Management, which will handle fleet maintenance, customer service and other operations.

Waymo says the partnership will create hundreds of jobs over time.

A proven safety record

Zeeshan Qadri, the president of AUVSI (Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International) Maple Canada, welcomes Waymo’s move into Toronto for a number of reasons, not the least of which is for the safety of city drivers and pedestrians.

“If you look at Waymo’s record, it shows that wherever they launched Waymo, it reduced the rate of accidents in that city,” he told Electric Autonomy in an interview.

“From a safety point of view, if it was three or four years ago, there would have been a concern as to how these vehicles would be performing on Canadian roads. But since we have already seen them in the U.S. and we know that they have done a pretty good job there, I think there will be less resistance.”

Waymo says it has driven more than 400 million fully autonomous kilometres and that its vehicles have been involved in 95 per cent fewer crashes causing serious injury or worse than human drivers in the cities where it operates.

A study in July by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a U.S.-based independent transportation science organization, found Waymo’s driverless vehicles deployed in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Austin were involved in 68 per cent fewer crashes than human drivers.

Tested for winter

Toronto isn’t the first city where Waymo has operated in winter. The company runs year-round services in Denver, Colorado, and Detroit and has done testing in Upstate New York, Michigan and the Sierra Nevada.

According to the company’s website, its sixth-generation Waymo Driver autonomous operations system includes sensor-cleaning mechanisms and adjusts its driving when it senses cold temperatures and snow.

A benefit for local supply chain

Part of AUVSI Maple Canada’s intentions is to create a bridge between governments and industry to help the progress of the autonomous vehicle supply chain and manufacturing. Qadri sees Waymo’s move as a benefit to the entire industry.

“Having something available local, it will give [suppliers] an opportunity to work with Waymo to enhance their products and systems, from software to hardware, which will help Canada in developing autonomous system technology.”

Government’s role

Waymo has been approved to take part in Ontario’s Automated Vehicle Pilot Program. The program began in 2016 and has allowed driverless testing since 2019 under certain conditions, including that companies be able to monitor and control vehicles remotely and bring them to a safe stop.

But the province’s website says the pilot has been extended only until Oct. 13, 2027 — months before Waymo hopes to carry its first riders. The program is also designed for testing only, which means the service will keep drivers in the cars for the foreseeable future while gathering performance data, pending regulatory changes.

Waymo has spent more than a year lobbying municipal, provincial and federal governments across Canada to have access to Toronto and other Canadian cities. Qadri acknowledges the reluctance of governments towards autonomous vehicles is down to safety and that Waymo will have to prove itself in real-world driving.

“The Ontario government and the Toronto city government will be very closely monitoring it and collecting data,” he says. “They’re going to take their time…and make sure that it’s safe for these vehicles to drive in Toronto.

“But once it’s successful in Toronto, it’s going to go to other cities.”