cannot spot some potholes or discern when humans, such as a police officers, signal the car to stop, the critic wrote. Waymo has worked to improve how its technology responds in construction zones. Commercialization In 2012, Brin stated that Google Self-Driving cars would be available for the general public in 2017. In 2014, this schedule was updated by project director Chris Urmson to indicate a possible release from 2017 to 2020. In December 2016, Waymo CEO John Krafcik stated in a blog post, "We can see our technology being useful in personal vehicles, ridesharing, logistics, or solving last mile problems for public transport. Our next step as Waymo will be to let people use our vehicles to do everyday things like run errands, commute to work, or get safely home after a night on the town." Temporary use of vehicles is known as Transportation as a Service (TaaS). Waymo highlighted four specific business uses for its autonomous tech in 2017: Ridesharing, users can hail cars equipped with Waymo technology via transportation network company apps; trucking and logistics, urban last-mile solutions for public transportation, and passenger cars. In 2017, Waymo was also considering licensing autonomous technology to vehicle manufacturers. In May 2018, Waymo established a subsidiary in Shanghai, Huimo Business Consulting, with $441,000 of funding. In April 2021, Waymo's co-CEOs Dmitri Dolgov and Tekedra Mawakana stated that the company will continue with a safety-conscious roadmap to robotic ride-hailing, trucks and personal vehicles, even though it may take a longer time to reach commercialization. Robotaxis In August 2013, news reports surfaced about robotaxi, a proposed driverless vehicle taxicab service from Google. These reports re-appeared again in early 2014, following the granting of a patent to Google for an advertising fee funded transportation service which included autonomous vehicles as a transport method. Google consultant Larry Burns says self-driving, taxi-like vehicles "should be viewed as a new form of public transportation". In April 2017, Waymo launched an early rider program in Phoenix, Arizona, which signed up 400 users to try out a test edition of Waymo's transportation service. Over the next year, 400 riders used the Waymo service, providing feedback. In May 2018, Waymo announced that it planned to allow everyone in Phoenix to request a driverless ride before the end of the year. On December 5, 2018, the company launched a commercial self-driving car service called "Waymo One"; users in the Phoenix metropolitan