Ford & Volkswagen Backed Self Driving Company Argo AI Lays Off 150 Employees

Argo AI, which is a self-driving startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen, has laid off 6 percent of its staff with a total of 150 job cuts. This move is intended to offset a period of growth where it hired more people than it was needed to. 

“With incredible growth and progress made in our mission to deploy driverless vehicles, we are making prudent adjustments to our business plan to best continue on a path for success,” Argo AI said in an emailed statement obtained by Bloomberg. 

The company which is based in Pittsburg has 2,000 people and was founded by Bryan Salesky who was the head of hardware at Google for self-driving cars. He co-founded the company with Peter Ranger who was the engineering lead for Uber’s self-driving overtures. Ford invested $1 billion into the company in 2017 and then Volkswagen followed by $2.6 billion in 2020. 

Ford said that Argo AI continues to be a critical partner for self-driving services and it will be the underpinning technology provider for the Detroit based automaker for autonomous technology. 

Argo AI is already active in many US cities like Miami, Washington DC and Austin and has plans on partnering with ride-sharing service Lyft. It also plans on launching in Germany with Volkswagen by 2025.