Volkswagen have completed their $2.6bn investment in Argo AI, a self-driving startup based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Argo, founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, are now jointly controlled by Volkswagen and Ford (who made an initial investment early in Argo’s life). Volkswagen’s agreement includes the transfer to Argo of the automaker’s Munich-based Autonomous Intelligent Driving unit, which boosts Argo’s employment to more than 1,000, according to Salesky.
Volkswagen’s supervisory board has approved several projects in a multibillion-dollar alliance with Ford announced last July. Ford, for their part, created Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC in 2018, pledging to invest $4bn until 2023 and have sought outside investors to help share the spiraling cost of developing autonomous vehicles.