By taking this step, both groups want to save costs in the development of technology for autonomous driving. The cooperation also affects electric cars.
Volkswagen, as announced, joined the Ford subsidiary Argo AI in the billions. The two car giants want to share costs in the development of technology for autonomous driving. In addition, the partners also signed their contracts for cooperation in electric cars and light commercial vehicles, as announced on Wednesday. The Wolfsburg supervisory board finally approved the project at the end of May. The companies have been talking to each other for a long time, and they had specifically agreed on the scope of the cooperation in July last year.
The alliance is one of the most important projects by VW boss Herbert Diess. “This collaboration will efficiently reduce development costs, enable more electric and commercial vehicles to spread worldwide, and significantly strengthen the position of both companies,” he said.
According to earlier information, Volkswagen is investing around one billion US dollars (884 million euros) in financial resources in Argo and is bringing its own autonomous business AID to the partnership, which is worth 1.6 billion dollars. Argo is to develop software and technology for autonomous driving of cars.
In addition, Ford wants to build its own electric car in Europe from 2023 on the basis of Volkswagen’s electric platform. With this, Volkswagen wants to recoup part of the multi-billion euro investments in the so-called MEB (Modular E-Drive Kit). The US manufacturer is currently planning to deliver more than 600,000 vehicles of the new model over several years.
Ford is also designing the next medium-sized Amarok pickup that VW subsidiary VW Commercial Vehicles (VW Nutzfahrzeuge – VWN) plans to build from 2022. In addition, a common city delivery van and later a common van in the one-ton loading segment are planned from next year. Around 8 million vehicles are to be developed and produced for commercial vehicles alone.
