Ford-Backed Argo AI Lays Off 150 Workers Following Rapid Ramp Up

Over the past couple of years, Ford-based self-driving startup Argo AI has expanded rapidly across the globe, revealing promising new technology, partnering with companies like Lyft and Walmart on autonomous commercial services, releasing guidelines on how self-driving vehicles should view cyclists, and even ditching human safety drivers in Austin and Miami recently. However, it appears that Argo AI may have expanded a bit too quickly, as the company has announced that it is laying off 150 workers amid an overstaffing situation, according to 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,” the company said in a statement. “Argo is a critical partner of our self-driving service, and we will continue to support them and work together on developing the self-driving technology that will power our self-driving service,” Ford added in its own statement.

Globally, Argo AI still employs over 2,000 people, but the company was on a bit of a hiring spree as of late as it aims to have 1,000 self-driving vehicles in service across six U.S. cities in the coming years. Over the past couple of years, both Volkswagen and Ford have invested billions in Argo, which says that it remains on track in terms of rolling out its commercial autonomous vehicle services for both automakers.

Additionally, last year, Argo became the first autonomous vehicle technology developer to receive third-party validation by TÜV SÜD for test driver selection, training, and oversight procedures. The assessment confirmed that Argo meets, and in some cases exceeds, industry best practices and standards as outlined by Autonomous Vehicle Safety Consortium’s (AVSC) best practices and SAE International’s J3018 standard for safe on-road testing.

We’ll have more on Argo AI soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for 24/7 Ford news coverage.