Waymo’s robotaxis are headed to Canada

Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, is expanding into Canada after receiving approval to participate in Ontario’s automated vehicle pilot program.

The company isn’t launching a robotaxi service just yet, though. Waymo tends to follow the same playbook for every new city, gradually proceeding from manual mapping to testing, and eventually operating a commercial service.

Waymo said in a blog post on Friday that its self-driving vehicles will be manually driven in Toronto to create high-definition maps of local street networks. The company will then test its autonomous vehicles on public roads with a human safety operator on board. These operators will eventually be pulled from the driver’s seat, and afterwards the company will invite the public to take rides in its robotaxis.