Ford and VW are cutting ties with Argo AI as their autonomous vehicle partner and as a result they will be going out of business.
VW is going to use other suppliers for AV tech while Ford is going to absorb some of Argo's workforce.
Autonomous vehicle company Argo AI is shutting down. In an earnings report, Ford (a major investor in Argo AI) noted that the company is being wound down and that it will hire engineers from the startup to expand and speed up development of Level 2+ and Level 3 autonomous driving systems.
Ford says that it made a decision to refocus its self-driving capital spending from the Level 4 systems Argo was working on (where the vehicles handles most driving operations) to Level 2+ (advanced driver assistance) and Level 3 (conditional automation) tech it's developing in-house. It noted that Argo AI wasn't able to attract new investors and that it was taking a "$2.7 billion non-cash, pretax impairment on its investment" in the company, which led to it posting an $827 million net loss for Q3.
According to TechCrunch, which first reported on Argo AI's closure, Volkswagen and Ford will snap up the company's tech and other assets. It's not clear how the automakers, which invested at least $3.6 billion into Argo AI between them, are divvying things up nor how many of Argo AI's more than 2,000 workers they plan to make employment offers to. All Argo AI employees will receive bonuses as part of their severance package, with those who Ford and VW don't keep on receiving additional payments and health insurance, according to the report.
VW is going to use other suppliers for AV tech while Ford is going to absorb some of Argo's workforce.
Autonomous vehicle company Argo AI is shutting down. In an earnings report, Ford (a major investor in Argo AI) noted that the company is being wound down and that it will hire engineers from the startup to expand and speed up development of Level 2+ and Level 3 autonomous driving systems.
Ford says that it made a decision to refocus its self-driving capital spending from the Level 4 systems Argo was working on (where the vehicles handles most driving operations) to Level 2+ (advanced driver assistance) and Level 3 (conditional automation) tech it's developing in-house. It noted that Argo AI wasn't able to attract new investors and that it was taking a "$2.7 billion non-cash, pretax impairment on its investment" in the company, which led to it posting an $827 million net loss for Q3.
According to TechCrunch, which first reported on Argo AI's closure, Volkswagen and Ford will snap up the company's tech and other assets. It's not clear how the automakers, which invested at least $3.6 billion into Argo AI between them, are divvying things up nor how many of Argo AI's more than 2,000 workers they plan to make employment offers to. All Argo AI employees will receive bonuses as part of their severance package, with those who Ford and VW don't keep on receiving additional payments and health insurance, according to the report.
