Ford, VW-Backed Argo.ai Self-Driving Joint Venture to Close

Argo.ai, a US self-driving venture backed by Ford and Volkwagen Group, is to be wound down. Volkswagen has announced it will no longer invest in Argo AI.

In individual mobility, VW's Cariad is continuing to drive forward the group's development of highly automated and autonomous driving together with Bosch and, in the future, in China with Horizon Robotics.

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (VWN) is further expanding its cooperation to develop technology for its autonomous driving mobility fleets with a partner.

This company says this will be announced shortly. 

Oliver Blume, CEO Volkswagen AG says: "Especially in the development of future technologies, focus and speed count. Our goal is to offer our customers the most powerful functions at the earliest possible time and to set up our development as cost-effectively as possible."

Christian Senger, member of the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand board of management responsible for MaaS/TaaS and AD (Mobility and Transport as a Service; Autonomous Driving), adds: "In the course of the cooperation with another partner, the collaboration within the group to develop highly automated and autonomous driving will also be strengthened."

Ford says it will hire talented Level 4 engineers from Argo AI, as the company is wound down, to expand and speed development of self-driving opportunities.

To date, more than 83,000 Ford vehicle owners have enrolled in the Ford BlueCruise and Lincoln ActiveGlide services – and logged more than 21 million hands-free, L2 miles in just over one year since launch.

In 2017, when Ford invested in Pittsburgh-based Argo AI and autonomous vehicles, the company anticipated being able to bring Level 4 ADAS technology broadly to market by 2021.

“But things have changed, and there's a huge opportunity right now for Ford to give time – the most valuable commodity in modern life – back to millions of customers while they’re in their vehicles,” comments Ford President and CEO, Jim Farley. “It’s mission-critical for Ford to develop great and differentiated L2+ and L3 applications that at the same time make transportation even safer. “We’re optimistic about a future for L4 ADAS, but profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off and we won’t necessarily have to create that technology ourselves.” 

Volkswagen is working with Argo AI to provide continued employment for employees and to further develop the most promising projects in the field of autonomous driving.