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According to several media reports, Argo AI, a L4 self-driving technology company jointly invested by Ford and Volkswagen, was suddenly closed and disbanded. It is reported that after the dissolution, the employees and technology of Argo AI may be taken over by Ford and Volkswagen, but it is not clear how the two sides will distribute them so far.

Argo AI spokesman Alan Hall (Alan Hall) said in a statement on Oct. 26 local time: "the company will no longer carry out its mission. This is a decision made through coordination with shareholders. Some employees will have the opportunity to continue to work on Ford or Volkswagen's self-driving technology, while others will unfortunately end their employment." Ford and Volkswagen, which each own 39% of the shares, also announced that they would no longer invest in Argo AI. "the company needs to invest in driving assistance technology that is easier to achieve in the short term, rather than Argo's goal of fully self-driving," Ford said in a statement, while Volkswagen said it would no longer invest in self-driving startup Argo AI and would focus its self-driving work on its existing partnership with Bosch and Horizon.

In fact, there were signs of poor Argo AI development as early as July this year. In July, Argo AI announced a change in business planning, laying off 150 employees, accounting for about 6% of the company's total employees. It is reported that Argo AI, which still had 2000 employees worldwide at that time, is now facing bankruptcy, which means that the company's employees will also be laid off. At that time, many employees will face unemployment, but according to Argo AI, after the dissolution of Argo AI, the company's technical resources and achievements will be taken over by Ford and Volkswagen. These include most of Argo AI's employees.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Argo AI is an L4-level self-driving start-up in the United States, focusing on technologies related to self-driving cars. Although the company is only a start-up, its founder team has a long history, both of which have held important positions in the self-driving teams of Google and Uber, and have been invested and valued by established automakers Ford and Volkswagen at the beginning of their founding.

Argo AI, which is less than a year old, received a $1 billion investment from Ford in February 2017, when Ford announced that it would invest $1 billion in Argo AI over the next five years, making Argo AI famous. At that time, Volkswagen was also committed to the development of self-driving technology, but its own technology was not up to standard. In August 2018, Volkswagen discussed acquisition ideas with Aurora and Waymo, which ended in failure until they worked with Argo AI to get what they wanted.

In June 2020, Argo AI received a $2.6 billion investment from Volkswagen, of which $1 billion came from a direct cash injection from the Volkswagen Group, while the rest was the merger of Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID), a self-driving subsidiary of Volkswagen with a valuation of $1.6 billion, into Argo AI. With the merger of AID, AID's headquarters in Munich, Germany, has become Argo AI's new European headquarters, while Argo AI's global staff has increased from 500 to more than 700.

At the time, the founder and CEO of Argo AI said: "in cooperation with Volkswagen and Ford, Argo AI's technology can cover multiple brands and models in North American and European markets in the future." Backed by Ford and Volkswagen, Argo AI raised a total of $3.6 billion in investment funds, with a market capitalization of $7 billion and more than 2000 employees at its peak, and a year ago there was news that Argo AI was considering IPO.

Argo AI became famous largely because of the support of two big financiers, Ford and Volkswagen, but after the two financiers withdrew, Argo AI only had chicken feathers left. For the sudden closure and dissolution of Argo AI, the main reason is that its autopilot progress is slow and too expensive, Ford and Volkswagen decided not to inject capital because of uncertainty about the future. "fully self-driving cars with large profits still have a long way to go," said John Lawler, Ford's chief financial officer. "it will take at least more than five years to see a return on fully self-driving investment, which means billions more will be needed." For Ford, the current Argo AI can no longer meet Ford's development needs. In addition, according to Ford's third-quarter financial report, Ford recorded a $2.7 billion "non-cash pre-tax impairment" on its investment in Argo AI, coupled with supply chain problems, resulting in a net loss of $827 million in the third quarter. Oliver Blume, CEO of Volkswagen, also said: "focus and speed are crucial, especially in the development of future technologies." Our goal is to provide our customers with the most powerful functionality in the shortest possible time and to make our development as cost-effective as possible. " Volkswagen also did not see the development prospect of Argo AI, so it immediately withdrew its support for Argo.

People in the industry generally believe that with the closure of Argo AI or a major turning point in the whole field of self-driving, Ford and Volkswagen will tighten their investment in L4 autopilot and focus their resources on the development of L2 + and L3 intelligent driving. In addition, in sharp contrast to overseas unpopular self-driving tracks, the Chinese market is leading the intelligent electrification transformation of the global car industry. In the middle of this month, Volkswagen spent about 2.4 billion euros (16.8 billion yuan) on a joint venture with Horizon in China, and the deal is expected to close in the first half of 2023. Of course, Volkswagen has set up a new joint venture in China in the hope of speeding up the development of advanced driving assistance systems and self-driving systems for the Chinese market. On October 27th, Xiaoma Zhihang, one of the earliest self-driving companies in China, announced that its self-driving travel service (Robotaxi) was officially connected to the Ruqi travel platform to integrate self-driving vehicle capacity with self-driving vehicle capacity.

According to incomplete statistics, there are 105 financing projects in the domestic self-driving industry in 2021, with a total financing amount of 57.5 billion yuan. Since 2022, 80 financing projects have also taken place in the domestic self-driving industry, including 21 financing projects of 100 million yuan or more. Industry insiders predict that this year will be a year in which autopilot technology will be truly combined with the industry.

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