VW is investing $2.6 billion in ArgoAI after cash infusion from Ford

Volkswagen on Friday announced a $2.6 billion total investment in ArgoAI, a self-driving-vehicle startup that spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2016 and that had earlier attracted $1 billion in funding from Ford.

VW's investment is $1 billion in cash, with the additional contribution of its $1.6-billion, Munich-based Autonomous Intelligent Driving division.

ArgoAI would remain an independent company post-deal, which would allow it to seek additional investment from other partners.

Also on Friday, VW and Ford revealed additional details of their ongoing alliance, which commenced earlier this year. Ford will use a VW electric-vehicle platform to launch a new European EV by 2023.

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The race to fund promising self-driving-car startups is intensifying.

On Friday, Volkswagen announced that it would invest $2.6 billion in the autonomous-driving tech startup ArgoAI. The stake consists of $1 billion in cash plus the contribution of the VW Group's $1.6-billion Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID) division, headquartered in Munich, Germany.

The deal would value ArgoAI at more than $7 billion and transform AID into the startup's European headquarters.

“Our agreement with Volkswagen positions us as a technology platform company, expands the potential geography for deployment and will further fuel our product development,” ArgoAI Bryan Salesky said in a blog post published Friday. “In fact, we're the first self-driving company with definitive deployment plans in both the United States and Europe.”

He added: “We are excited to welcome the AID employees to Argo AI....With this move, our company will expand by 200 employees to reach a total of over 700.”

Read more: The CEO of Argo AI, a self-driving startup backed by Ford, reveals the one thing that is absolutely necessary for an autonomous-driving company to survive

ArgoAI formed in 2016 and, according to Salesky, planned to join with a major automaker from the beginning. It's now joined with two. And the investments from VW and from Ford, which committed $1 billion in 2017, don't exclude other companies from funding ArgoAI's growing platform.

Ford was ahead of the curve. “Bill Ford saw a lot of this before others did,” Salesky said of Ford's chairman, a longtime advocate of new-mobility ideas, in a 2018 interview with Business Insider. “He knew it would be a game-changer.”

Ford and VW will hold equal stakes in ArgoAI as a result of the deal.

Since early 2019, Ford and VW have been establishing a collaborative alliance (but not a formal tie-up, like the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance), so there's clear logic in VW CEO Herbert Diess following Ford CEO Jim Hackett's lead in making a bet on ArgoAI.

ArgoAI now has investment from the world's biggest car maker

“It's very capital-intensive,” Salesky said of bringing autonomous mobility to market. “It's not just the self-driving-car tech. We're talking about funding and deploying tens of thousands of vehicles. Going it alone without a car maker would be too hard. Ford has scale and a strong brand.”

And so does the VW Group, the world's biggest automaker.

Read more: An early Lyft backer has invested in self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, robotic farm equipment, and more. Here's why he won't touch scooter startups.

VW's ArgoAI investment is a pure technology play, as the Pittsburgh startup — now operating in the Detroit area, Silicon Valley, Washington, DC, New Jersey, and Miami — spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2016 and is now focused on developing its robotics-based tech rather than bringing it to market. That task falls to partners who elect to use it in their vehicles.

Ford's stated goal is to launch a fully self-driving vehicle by 2021. The No. 2 US car maker has been perceived as lagging behind Alphabet's Waymo and General Motors-owned Cruise, the latter of which has scored investments from SoftBank's Vision Fund and Honda, as well as institutional investors, taking its valuation to $19 billion.

Prior to Friday's ArgoAI-VW announcement, the startup's value had been pegged at around $4 billion, but the VW investment indicated that number was too low — and further indicates that a peer-group of well-funded autonomous companies has emerged to compete with each other as the incipient market takes shape.

Cruise intends to launch an autonomous ride-hailing service this year, and Waymo brought its service, dubbed “Waymo One,” to Arizona late in 2018. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that his company could produce a robo-taxi fleet by 2020.

Also on Friday, Ford and VW announced that they would expand their global alliance. Ford will use a VW electric- vehicle platform to launch a European EV by 2023 and continue their collaboration on delivery vans and pickup trucks.

大众汽车周五宣布对ArgoAI进行总计26亿美元的投资，这是一家自动驾驶汽车创业公司，于2016年从卡内基梅隆大学（Carnegie Mellon University）分拆出来，之前已经从福特公司获得了10亿美元的资金。 大众汽车的投资额为10亿美元现金，其16亿美元位于慕尼黑的自主智能驾驶部门的额外捐款。 ArgoAI将成为交易后的独立公司，这将使其能够寻求其他合作伙伴的额外投资。星期五，大众和福特公司披露了他们正在进行的联盟的更多细节，该联盟于今年早些时候开始。福特将使用大众电动汽车平台在2023年之前推出一款新的欧洲电动汽车。访问Business Insider的主页以获取更多故事。为有前途的自驾车创业公司提供资金的竞争正在加剧。周五，大众宣布将投资26亿美元用于自动驾驶技术创业公司ArgoAI。此股权包括10亿美元的现金加上大众集团总部位于德国慕尼黑的16亿美元自主智能驾驶（AID）部门的贡献。该交易将使ArgoAI价值超过70亿美元，并将AID转变为创业公司的欧洲总部。“我们与大众汽车的协议使我们成为一家技术平台公司，扩大了部署的潜在地理位置，并将进一步推动我们的产品开发，”ArgoAI Bryan Salesky周五在一篇博客文章中表示。 “事实上，我们是第一家在美国和欧洲都有明确部署计划的自动驾驶公司。”他补充道：“我们很高兴欢迎AID员工加入Argo AI ......此举，我们公司将扩大200名员工，达到700多名。”阅读更多：Argo AI的首席执行官，一个由福特支持的自驾车创业公司，揭示了一件绝对必要的事情。一个自动驾驶的公司，为了生存，2016年成立了ArgoAI，根据Salesky的说法，计划与一家大型汽车制造商合作NG。它现在加入了两个。而大众汽车和福特公司（2017年承诺10亿美元）的投资并未排除其他公司为ArgoAI不断增长的平台提供资金。福特汽车领先于其他公司。 “在其他人做之前，比尔·福特看到了很多这样的事情，”Salesky在2018年接受Business Insider采访时谈到了福特董事长，他是新移动创意的长期倡导者。 “他知道这将改变游戏规则。”由于这笔交易，福特和大众将在ArgoAI中持有相同的股份。自2019年初以来，福特和大众一直在建立合作联盟（但不是像雷诺 - 日产 - 三菱联盟这样的正式合作，所以大众汽车首席执行官赫伯特·迪斯（Herbert Diess）遵循福特首席执行官吉姆·哈克特（Jim Hackett）领导ArgoAI赌博的明确逻辑。 ArgoAI现在有来自世界上最大的汽车制造商“这是非常资本密集型的”，Salesky谈到将自动机动性推向市场。 “这不仅仅是自动驾驶汽车技术。我们正在谈论资助和部署数以万计的汽车。没有汽车制造商独自行动将会太难。福特拥有规模和强大的品牌。”世界上最大的汽车制造商大众集团也是如此。阅读更多：早期的Lyft支持者投资了自动驾驶汽车，人工智能，机器人农场设备等。这就是为什么他不会接触踏板车初创公司。左大的ArgoAI投资是一项纯粹的技术发展，匹兹堡创业公司 - 现在在底特律地区，硅谷，华盛顿特区，新泽西和迈阿密运营 - 分拆出来2016年卡内基梅隆大学（Carnegie Mellon University）现在专注于开发基于机器人技术而不是将其推向市场。这项任务属于选择在车辆中使用它的合作伙伴。福特的既定目标是在2021年之前推出一款全自动驾驶汽车。这家美国排名第二的汽车制造商被认为落后于Alphabet的Waymo和General汽车公司拥有的Cruise，其后者已经从SoftBank的Vision Fund和Honda以及机构投资者那里获得了投资在周五的ArgoAI-VW宣布之前，初创公司的价值已经固定在40亿美元左右，但是大众汽车的投资表明这个数字太低了 - 并且进一步表明这个数字太好了 - 随着初期市场的形成，资助的自治公司已经出现了相互竞争。一，Cruise计划今年推出一项自动乘车服务，Waymo将其服务称为“Waymo One”，最后在亚利桑那州推出。 2018.特斯拉首席执行官埃隆马斯克曾表示，他的公司可以在2020年之前生产机动车出租车。周五，福特和大众宣布他们将扩大其全球联盟。福特将使用大众电动汽车平台在2023年前推出欧洲电动汽车，并继续与送货车和皮卡车合作。