Ford-Backed Autonomous Car Start-Up Argo AI Fires 150 Employees

Argo AI, the autonomous car start-up backed by Ford and Volkswagen, has laid off about 150 employees. It is about 6% of the company's 2,000 employees. This is due to the company hiring more employees than required.

Argo AI said in an emailed statement obtained by Bloomberg:

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 was founded in 2016 by Brian Salesky, the former head of hardware development for Google's autonomous cars, and Peter Render, who was previously a lead engineer at Uber's self-driving car division. Ford made a $1 billion investment in the company in 2017 and Volkswagen invested $2.6 billion in 2020.

The company is developing its AV business in several US cities as well as abroad. For example, Argo AI is testing fully autonomous cars in Miami and Austin and plans to collaborate with Lyft in both cities. The company is also working towards its goal of launching an automated ride-hailing service with Volkswagen in Germany by 2025.