News Summary

• Volkswagen said it intends to employ former Argo engineers, but didn’t say if these people were already working for Volkswagen.The plan, at least in these early days, is to begin testing the autonomous vehicle technology developed by Mobileye in Austin.
• “Expanding our autonomous vehicle program to the North American Region is the next step in our global strategic roadmap, and the result of a long-term collaborative investment,” Christian Senger, member of the board of management of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, said in a statement.
• Instead, it seems VW plans to make money by selling an autonomous vehicle service — self-driving ID Buzz vans and fleet management software — to other companies that want to use it for deliveries or ride hailing.
• “Moving into this next phase will help us test, validate and refine technology, bring us closer to establishing commercially available transportation offerings and eventually grow the diverse mobility portfolio for the Volkswagen Group.”
• All vehicles will have a human safety operator behind the wheel during this testing phase.Volkswagen said it plans to expand to at least four more American cities over the next three years.
• The vehicles, equipped with cameras, lidar, radar and self-driving software, will be initially used to collect data.