Ford and Volkswagen will be strengthening their global alliance to now include the development of electric vehicles along with collaboratively investing into Argo AI to introduce autonomous vehicle technology in the U.S. and Europe in VW and Ford vehicles.
According to the partnership agreement, Ford and Volkswagen will hold an equal stake in Argo AI and combined, Volkswagen and Ford will own a substantial majority. The remainder will be used as an incentive pool for Argo AI employees.
Ford President and CEO Jim Hackett said “While Ford and Volkswagen remain independent and fiercely competitive in the marketplace, teaming up and working with Argo AI on this important technology allows us to deliver unmatched capability, scale and geographic reach. Unlocking the synergies across a range of areas allows us to showcase the power of our global alliance in this era of smart vehicles for a smart world.”
Ford has been backing Argo AI since 2017. Volkswagen has announced to put forward £2.1 billion – including £800 million in direct funding and the transferring of its own autonomous driving tech company. Both manufacturers have claimed that commercial deployment of the AI tech will commence in Europe followed by the US with Level-4 capabilities.
With this collaboration, Ford will become the first additional automaker to use Volkswagen’s MEB electric vehicle architecture and the Modular Electric Toolkit. Ford will deliver a high-volume electric vehicle for the European market by 2023 and the American company expects to sell 600,000 units of MEB architecture based vehicles in a span of 6 years as a second model is also under discussion. However, no particulars regarding the style of the vehicle have been announced as yet.
VW will supply the MEB platform including the battery packs and structural components to Ford, upon which Ford will design its own vehicle in Cologne, Germany. The vehicle will be manufactured at one of Ford’s current facilities in Europe, however, it is still unconfirmed as to which facility it will be.
