Ford and Volkswagen are attempting to extract any remaining value from Argo AI, the autonomous vehicle startup in which the two automakers invested billions of dollars before abruptly closing it down last week.
According to sources familiar with the company’s demise, one of the main items on the market is Argo Lidar, an 80-person team and the lidar technology they developed.
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In October 2017, Argo AI acquired Princeton Lightwave, a lidar startup based in Princeton, New Jersey. The Ford-backed acquisition was hailed years later as providing a key piece of technology in Argo’s full self-driving system.
Most in the industry consider Lidar, the light detection and ranging radar that measures distance using laser light to generate a highly accurate 3D map of the world, to be a critical sensor required to safely deploy autonomous vehicles on a commercial scale.
The team, which is still headquartered in Princeton, created medium and long-range lidar sensors.
According to Argo, the long-range lidar can see 400 meters away with high-resolution photorealistic quality and detect dark and distant objects with low reflectivity.
Argo CEO and co-founder Bryan Salesky told TechCrunch in May 2021 that the lidar sensor was designed to be cost-effective and mass-produced, two important factors for any company attempting to commercialize autonomous vehicle technology.
This year, LG Innotek, a South Korean electronics component manufacturer, began producing lidar units for Argo.
According to sources, companies outside of the AV world have expressed interest in purchasing Argo Lidar’s sensors. It’s unclear whether any of these interested parties will buy the entire lidar team.
Meanwhile, some of Argo’s 2,000 global employees are receiving job offers from Ford and Volkswagen. The two automakers invested a total of $3.6 billion in Argo — $2 billion in cash and $1.6 billion in value when it acquired VW’s Autonomous Intelligent Driving subsidiary and renamed it Argo AI GmbH.
VW intends to reintegrate the Munich-based Argo AI GmbH, which employs over people, many of whom previously worked for AID.
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VW is also hiring approximately 100 former Argo employees in the United States, indicating the automaker’s desire to establish some operations in the United States.
According to sources, “several hundred” employees will be offered positions at Ford.
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