What started as a partnership for the development of commercial vehicles and pick-up trucks between Ford and Volkswagen, has now been extended to the development of electric vehicles and also to the investment in Argo AI, a company that develops systems for high-level autonomous driving 4.
Confirmed is at least one electric model with the oval symbol, with others under discussion. The new model will derive from MEB, Volkswagen's component matrix dedicated to electric vehicles, whose first descendant will be the ID.3, to be unveiled at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show in early September.
Ford's goal is to sell 600,000 units of its new electric vehicle over six years, starting in 2023 — This will be developed at Ford's development center in Köln-Merkenich, Germany, with Volkswagen supplying MEB (Modular Electric Toolkit) parts and components.
The production of the new model will also be in Europe, with Ford referring, through Joe Hinrichs, its president for the automotive area, the need to reconvert one of its factories. The agreement signed with Volkswagen is just one more part of an investment of more than 10.2 billion euros by Ford in electric vehicles globally.
MEB
The development of the MEB architecture and components was started by Volkswagen in 2016, which corresponds to an investment of over six billion euros. MEB will be the "backbone" of the German group's electric futures, and 15 million units are expected to be produced over the next decade, distributed by Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT and Skoda.
Ford thus becomes the first manufacturer to license MEB. The German constructor had previously revealed that it would be available to license MEB to other constructors, a fundamental step to guarantee the volumes and economies of scale to make the investment profitable, something that has proved extremely difficult for the industry, if not impossible, at this stage transition to electric mobility.
Argo AI
The company dedicated to developing Level 4 autonomous driving systems has just become one of the most important globally, after the announcement of Ford and Volkswagen, manufacturers with whom it will work more closely, despite the open door to others.
Volkswagen will invest €2.3 billion, approximately €1 billion in direct investment with the rest coming from the integration of its own Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID) company and its more than 200 employees. Investment that follows the previously announced by Ford of one billion euros — the valuation of Argo AI is now over six billion euros.
The agreement between Ford and Volkswagen will make them equal holders of Argo AI — founded by former employees of Uber Technologies and Waymo — and both will be the company's main investors holding a sizable part of it.
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AID will thus become Argo AI's new European headquarters, based in Munich, Germany. With this integration, the number of Argo AI employees will grow from 500 to over 700 globally.