Ford Has Cut Its Plans For Developing Autonomous Cars (PDF)

According to Ford’s recent earnings report, the company will be pulling out of its artificial intelligence venture called Argo AI. In order to turn around the company’s losses, Ford is focusing on advanced driver-assistance systems instead of AI. It makes financial sense for the Blue Oval to step back and make some changes. In the past year alone, they lost more than $800 million just with Argo AI. 

Ford’s CEO Jim Farley says, ” We’re optimistic about the future of L4 ADAS, but fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off, and we don’t necessarily have to create that technology ourselves.”

Back in 2017, Ford and Volkswagen each invested $4 billion into the artificial intelligence company, Argo. The Pittsburgh-based company was started by Bryan Salesky and former Uber employee, Peter Rander. Salesky previously worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The biggest question here is whether this will signal a shift for other automakers. Tesla has been focused on autonomous driving for nearly a decade now and they’ve been branded as “fully self-driving.” But it isn’t totally true, since the car can’t drive itself in all situations. Though nobody would expect Musk’s EV maker to step away from self-driving tech, because he’s believed to be invested in the auto industry for a long time and is also involved with other car companies.

With self-driving technology continuing, we may start to see car manufacturers decrease their investments in the fields. Instead, tech companies such as Alphabet’s Waymo should be ready to take on what these manufacturers leave behind.

Argo said: “In coordination with our shareholders, the decision has been made that Argo AI will not continue on its mission as a company. Many of the employees will receive an opportunity to continue work on automated driving technology with either Ford or Volkswagen, while employment for others will, unfortunately, come to an end.”.