text: Original by Dongchedi Chang Siyue
[Original by Dongchedi Industry] Recently, according to foreign media reports, the autonomous driving company Argo AI, jointly invested by Ford and Volkswagen, is facing bankruptcy. After the business is closed, some employees will enter Ford and Volkswagen to work, but the specific proportion has not been announced yet.
Argo AI is about to go bankrupt
In a sense, this may mean that Ford and Volkswagen's cooperation in the field of autonomous driving is about to come to an end.
In June 2020, Ford and Volkswagen's cooperation was officially implemented. At that time, the two sides clarified that the direction of cooperation would focus on the complementary advantages and coordinated cooperation in the fields of medium-sized pickup trucks, commercial vehicles and electric vehicles.
Cooperation agreement signed by Ford and Volkswagen
Among them, in the field of autonomous driving, Argo AI is an important landing company for cooperation between the two parties. This company was first supported and developed by Ford. At that time, Volkswagen invested $2.6 billion in Argo AI, and at the same time, it also agreed to purchase $500 million in Argo AI stock from Ford within three years.
Argo AI is an important implementation company for the cooperation between the two parties
How close are the cooperation between the two parties? Volkswagen even directly handed over the $1.6 billion autonomous intelligent driving division in Munich to Argo AI to take over.
In other words, since Ford and Volkswagen joined forces, Argo AI has actually brought together talents related to autonomous driving from two car companies.
Argo AI autonomous driving test car
However, the company's subsequent development has not been smooth sailing. There have been few progress in two years. In July this year, it was reported that Argo AI laid off 150 employees, accounting for about 6% of the total number of employees. After the layoffs, its global employees had more than 2,000 employees.
In fact, the overall progress of Ford's cooperation with Volkswagen seems to be relatively slow at present. As for its subsequent development, , will also keep an eye on it.
