[AutonomousVehicles] Argo AI Self Driving Startup Shutting Down

[Cornelius Butler]

Hi Everyone,
Ford and Volkswagen are shutting down ArgoAI. This was their self driving
partnership focused on Level 4 autonomous driving. They are instead going
to just focus on level 3. Below is the article link and text.

Article Link:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/26/23423998/argo-ai-shut-down-ford-vw-av-self-driving

Article Text:

Argo.ai, driverless startup backed by Ford and VW, is shutting down / The
Pittsburgh-based startup, which was founded in 2016, will be absorbed into
its two automotive partners. Argo had been testing its vehicles in Miami,
Austin, and Washington, DC.
By ANDREW J. HAWKINS / @andyjayhawk

Oct 26, 2022, 3:52 PM EDT

Argo AI, the self-driving startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen, is
shutting down, The Verge has learned. Employees were notified that an
announcement would be made late in the day Wednesday. (The news was first
reported by TechCrunch.)

The company, which was founded by veterans of Google and Uber’s
self-driving car projects, has lost the financial support of Ford and VW, a
source said. And according to TechCrunch, the company’s resources will be
absorbed by both automakers. Argo is estimated to have around 2,000
employees, though it did announce a round of layoffs earlier this year. A
spokesperson for Argo declined to comment.

Argo was founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky, the former head of hardware
development for Google’s autonomous vehicles (AVs), and Peter Rander, who
previously served as an engineering lead for Uber’s self-driving branch.
Ford injected $1 billion into the company in 2017, and Volkswagen followed
up with a $2.6 billion investment in 2020.

The funding has allowed the company to build out its AV business in the US
and overseas. Argo AI is currently in the process of testing fully
autonomous vehicles in Washington, DC, Miami, and Austin and planned on
partnering with Lyft in those cities. It also teamed up with Walmart to
deploy a driverless delivery service and was working toward its goal of
launching an automated rideshare service with Volkswagen in Germany by 2025.

Ford has long touted Argo’s progress as crucial to the automaker’s
overarching plans to launch a commercial robotaxi service. Earlier this
year, Ford CEO Jim Farley congratulated Argo for removing safety drivers
from its vehicles in Austin and Miami, two of the cities where the company
tests its vehicles.

“Congratulations to our partners Argo AI!” Farley wrote in a LinkedIn post.
“As we work to build and scale a fully autonomous commercial service, this
milestone from Argo is a significant step forward in their technology
development and the future of transportation!”

Several months later, when it was reported that Argo was laying off about
150 employees, a spokesperson called the company a “critical partner of our
self-driving service, and we will continue to support them and work
together on developing the self-driving technology that will power our
self-driving service.”

But cracks were starting to show in these multibillion-dollar companies.
Argo’s main rivals, Waymo and Cruise, had major leadership shake-ups.
Valuations have dropped as timelines have stretched further and further
out. Companies that went public by SPAC have seen their share price tumble.
The costs have grown while revenues trickle in.

Argo came very close to merging with a SPAC, which stands for special
acquisition company, even going so far as to choose JP Morgan Chase and
Morgan Stanley to manage its most recent funding round. The company was
said to be going public with a $7 billion valuation.


-- 
Cornelius Butler
President
Butler New Media, LLC
"Creating A More Accessible World"
http://www.butlernewmedia.com
email: corn at butlernewmedia.com
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