Autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI is shutting down

Autonomous vehicle company is shutting down. In an earnings report, Ford (a major investor in Argo AI) noted that the company is being wound down and that it will hire engineers from the startup to expand and speed up development of Level 2+ and Level 3 autonomous driving systems.

Ford says that it made a decision to refocus its self-driving capital spending from the Level 4 systems Argo was working on (where the vehicles handles most driving operations) to Level 2+ (advanced driver assistance) and Level 3 (conditional automation) tech it’s developing in-house. It noted that Argo AI wasn’t able to attract new investors and that it was taking a “$2.7 billion non-cash, pretax impairment on its investment” in the company, which led to it posting an $827 million net loss for Q3.

According to TechCrunch, which first reported on Argo AI’s closure, Volkswagen and Ford will snap up the company’s tech and other assets. It’s not clear how the automakers, which invested at least $3.6 billion into Argo AI between them, are divvying things up nor how many of Argo AI’s more than 2,000 workers they plan to make employment offers to. All Argo AI employees will receive bonuses as part of their severance package, with those who Ford and VW don’t keep on receiving additional payments and health insurance, according to the report.

In 2017, Ford said it would . Two years later, VW committed $2.6 billion in capital and assets toward the startup. Around that time, Ford and VW said they that harness Argo AI’s autonomous driving tech. Between them, the automakers held a “substantial majority” stake in Argo AI.

Argo AI had been testing its tech on public roads and Germany. In May, it in Austin and Miami without a safety driver at the wheel. Lyft was that were looking at deploying Argo AI-powered vehicles. Just last month, Argo AI a number of tools and services designed to support autonomous delivery and robotaxi operations.

It’s not clear what prompted the apparent closure of Argo AI — Engadget has contacted the company for comment. However, creating a robust and safe self-driving system is not exactly an easy challenge. Full Level 5 autonomy is still at least several years away from becoming truly viable for the mass market. To that end, Ford said in its earnings report that “the auto industry’s large-scale profitable commercialization of Level 4 advanced driver assistance systems will be further out than originally anticipated.”