Ford says full self-driving ‘is a long way off’ as Argo AI shuts down

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DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. posted a third-quarter loss of $827 million that it largely blames on newly revealed plans to shut down Argo AI, a self-driving vehicle development company the automaker had invested in heavily.

CEO Jim Farley said the company now believes mass deployment of fully self-driving vehicles is “a long way off,” while CFO John Lawler added it could be “five-plus years away.” Ford originally had planned to begin commercializing Level 4 vehicles in 2021 before pushing back that timeline due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“But things have changed, and there’s a huge opportunity right now for Ford to give time — the most valuable commodity in modern life — back to millions of customers while they’re in their vehicles,” Farley said in a statement. “We’re optimistic about a future for L4 ADAS, but profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off and we won’t necessarily have to create that technology ourselves.”

When Ford does eventually develop Level 4 technology, Lawler said it would likely be focused on commercial services like package delivery the company had been testing in various cities with Argo.

Farley said Ford plans to hire “a couple hundred” employees from Argo AI to expand and accelerate development of technology categorized as Level 2+ and Level 3 because they rely on more driver interaction. Volkswagen Group, another major Argo backer, is also expected to offer jobs to the self-driving startup’s employees.

Doug Field, Ford’s chief advanced product development and technology officer, said developing fully autonomous vehicles is the most difficult challenge now facing the industry.

“It’s harder than putting a man on the moon,” he said.

— Michael Martinez

What you need to know

Tesla faces criminal probe in the U.S. over self-driving claims: The Department of Justice launched the previously undisclosed probe last year following more than a dozen crashes, some fatal, involving Tesla’s driver assistance system Autopilot, which was activated during the accidents.

Automakers to double spending on EVs, batteries to $1.2 trillion by 2030: The amount includes developing and producing millions of EVs, along with the batteries and raw materials to support that production.

U.S. mining needs major boost to meet surging EV demand: If the U.S. and other nations hope to achieve their targets on electric vehicle adoption, supply chains for critical materials such as lithium and nickel will need to be built up fast.

Roundup

Hyundai broke ground on a $5.54 billion EV and battery plant in Georgia.

Mobileye Global Inc. priced one of the biggest U.S. initial public offerings of the year.

Shares of Aurora Innovation, TuSimple Holdings and Embark Technology all plunged at least 80 percent this year.

A major fire in South Korea is reigniting safety concerns about lithium ion batteries.

Ouster Inc. unveiled a series of digital lidar sensors that use a new chip and provide double the range of the previous generation.

On the move

The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association tapped former U.S. Senate aide Jeff Farrah to be its first executive director, according to Reuters. AVIA represents self-driving car companies and is working to convince policymakers to speed the deployment of autonomous vehicles and jump-start stalled legislation.

Startup Czinger Vehicles hired Dag Reckhorn as its chief manufacturing officer. Reckhorn, a former manufacturing executive for Tesla and Faraday Future, joins Czinger as it prepares to launch production of its 21C hybrid performance car, which was developed using artificial intelligence and 3D printing.

Brain food

Countless data points gathered by vehicles every day on public roads can be used to improve safety and traffic flow and speed up emergency response times. British automotive data startup Wejo hopes to play a major role in getting the auto industry to that point by using data to learn how drivers behave in every use-case scenario.

Last mile

Volvo will use colors on the driver display screen to signal the difference between driver-assisted mode and what it calls “unsupervised autonomous driving” mode in its EX90 full-electric flagship. The goal is “to make the transition from manual to assisted driving modes (and in the future, autonomous driving) in our cars effortless and intuitive,” Volvo said.