In the pursuit of self driving cars, Ford and Volkswagen have reached the next phase in their collaboration with Argo AI. The latter has now finalised its share of investment in the development of Argo AI¡¯s self driving technology.
First announced in July last year, Volskwagen, Ford and Argo AI teamed up with a vision to create self driving cars. While the two auto majors wanted their own self-driving vehicles out of the partnership, Argo AI would prove to be the backbone, providing the AI-backed system to the companies to enable autonomous driving.
The vision of the collaboration was to introduce self driving cars in both the US and Europe under the monikers of Ford and Volkswagen. With Volkswagen¡¯s investment in Argo AI finalised on June 1, the partnership now takes one step further towards fruition.
Volkswagen invested around $2.6 billion in Argo AI. The funds come in addition to the ones pumped in by Ford, that went up to $4 billion through 2023. Both the majors want to develop a scalable self-driving service with this investment.
Once developed, the fully integrated self-driving system will be embedded in the future electric vehicles of both Ford and Volkswagen. The global alliance between the two automobile mammoths does not involve cross-ownership between the companies and is only meant to create annual efficiencies for each company. They will also, thus, work on their own self-driving services based on Argo¡¯s technology post its development.
With the deal, Argo AI stands to gain the possibility of the largest ever deployment of a self-driving technology across the globe. With the auto majors targeting both the US and Europe for their self driving services, Argo AI will eventually be found in cars running on the roads of both the markets. That would technically be the largest geographic deployment potential of any autonomous driving technology to date.
¡°We¡¯ve said before, but it bears repeating: There are several important parts to developing a great self-driving service including the self-driving software, vehicle development, fleet operations and the customer experience. To be successful in this space, a company needs to look at every aspect of the business. It¡¯s not about being first. It¡¯s about providing value to our customers, making people¡¯s lives easier and offering cities new and improved mobility solutions,¡± said John Lawler, CEO, Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC, and Ford Motor Company Vice President, Mobility Partnerships.