$Alphabet(GOOGL.US)'s Waymo is heading to Canada, picking Toronto as its first Canadian city with paid robotaxi rides targeted for 2028

Waymo cars start driving Toronto streets in the coming days, manually at first, with trained specialists behind the wheel building HD maps and validating the software under Ontario's Automated Vehicle Pilot Program

Toronto is Waymo's 4th announced market outside the US, after London, Tokyo and Singapore

Toronto based Element Fleet Management will run fleet operations, $Magna(MGA.US) is the manufacturing partner and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is a long term investor. Waymo says it and its partners will create hundreds of local jobs

The hurdle is regulation. Ontario's pilot is a testing framework, not a ride hailing licence, and per Electrek the regulation behind it is set to be revoked on October 13, 2027, months before Waymo wants to carry riders

In the US, Waymo is already doing more than 500,000 paid rides a week across over a dozen metros

$Alphabet(GOOGL.US) is down about 2.7% today near $340 as the AI selloff drags on big tech

Every new city adds to the case that Waymo is one of the most underappreciated pieces of $Alphabet(GOOGL.US). Two years and at least two Toronto winters of testing before a single paid ride looks slow, but it is the same playbook that built a half million rides a week business in the US. The real risk here is not the tech, it is whether Ontario writes commercial rules before its pilot runs out

Source: StockMarket.News