Volkswagen & Ford unite for Self-Driving Electric Cars

The long-expected alliance between Volkswagen and Ford is official. As part of the deal, VW will become an equal stakeholder in Ford’s self-driving cars venture, while Ford will get access to VW’s electric vehicle technology.

In detail this means, Ford will use the MEB platform to launch at least one electric car in Europe. Another model is not far off. More so, for Volkswagen the cooperation is strategic. The official communication is titled “Together with Ford to the Future” and for Volkswagen, this means not only a large scale contract – Ford wants the German corporation to supply 600,000 MEB platform and components, including the battery packs. Moreover, a second model is being discussed and VW CEO Herbert Diess describes the strategic goals 

Volkswagen and Ford want to accomplish said autonomy through Argo AI. VW is investing 2.6 billion dollars in the Ford subsidiary developing systems for autonomous driving. With this investment, VW and Ford will become equal owners of Argo AI in the future. Volkswagen will also contribute the existing Audi Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID) unit to the venture.

But back to the MEB. While 600,000 electric vehicles made by Ford will enter the market in Europe latest in 2023, Volkwagen’s scale-up overpowers the licensing by far. Says Diess: “We intend to produce around 15 million vehicles on the MEB in the next ten years. Volkswagen is already developing and producing 27 different models on the MEB platform in the first wave. By 2028 there will be almost 70 models.”