How will expensive automotive artificial intelligence ever make a profit? Argo AI – a partnership between Ford and Volkswagen – is looking to take a different route than their rivals to answer this question
PITTSBURGH/DETROIT - Sky’s the limit optimism about self-driving cars is giving way to tougher questions about how expensive automotive artificial intelligence will ever make a profit.
The self-driving systems developer led by Bryan Salesky, who got his start developing automated vehicles for a Defense Department sponsored competition 12 years ago, is at the center of a multibillion-dollar bet by its auto giant partners that autonomous vehicle technology must be good for more than replacing taxi drivers.
Argo’s financial structure is also different from rival autonomous vehicle ventures. Ford and VW each own just under 40%, with Argo’s management team holding just over 20%, according to sources familiar with the business. Details of the ownership structure also have not previously been reported. Argo’s main rivals focused initially on deploying robotaxis. Waymo, however, is now working on adapting its automated “driver” to commercial vehicles, including Class 8 trucks, Waymo Chief Executive John Krafcik said.
In addition to deploying Argo-outfitted vehicles in its own ride services fleet, VW has received interest from other ride hailing and transportation companies in buying VW vehicles equipped with Argo’s system, said Thomas Sedran, head of VW Commercial Vehicles and the automaker’s autonomous vehicles initiative.
Salesky said Argo’s self-driving technology can be adapted to a variety of vehicle types, sizes and applications: “This is going to be a multi-stage thing where there are going to be a number of different platforms and potentially different businesses.”“We didn’t start from scratch,” said Glen De Vos, chief technology officer of Aptiv, which has bolstered its own expertise through acquisitions of self-driving startups nuTonomy and Ottomatika.
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