American giants of the IT industry and the auto industry buying up startups drones

12 July 2019

Apple bought the startup Drive.ai, and the Alliance of Ford and Volkswagen – startup Argo Ai

In late June, the legendary manufacturer of the iconic iPhone smartphones – Apple acquired the virtually bankrupt startup Drive.ai , who designed it systems for drones is unjustified. According to the Associated Press (AP), the transaction amount was not disclosed, although two years ago the startup was estimated at $200 million.

Unmanned vans of the Nissan NV200 with the equipment Drive.ai ran in in Texas

The Acquisition Drive.ai gives Apple the rights to technology used by unmanned vans being tested on short-haul routes in two cities of Texas – Arlington and Frisco. Not included in the press release and the fate of the engineers who previously worked on the Drive.ai, but after trades have lost their jobs.
And yet, according to the press service of Apple, dozens of engineers in hardware and software of the Drive.ai was again hired to work on the project at Apple. This shows that Tim cook decided to abandon the project of an Autonomous vehicle under Apple which was created division of Project Titan.
It also became known that Apple had to buy Drive.ai just a few days to eliminate this startup. So on June 28 the company Drive.ai has filed a notification to the local authorities, which informed that he was going to discontinue and to dismiss 90 employees, and it happened a few days before the deal with Apple.
But only a year ago, it Drive.ai was considered one of the most promising startups in the field of unmanned vehicles. Know-how has become the method of deep machine learning (deep learning), according to which the machines must be able to recognize each other and avoid collision with objects on the road. In 2017 Drive.ai has stated that he plans to test robotaxi along with the service Lyft, however, this draft did not take place.
In turn, Apple earlier this year has fired about 200 employees from its own subdivision Project Titan, which lists more than 5,000 people.

From left to right: Jim Hackett (head of the Ford Motor), Brian Selsky (Chapter Argo Ai) and Herbert Diess (President of Volkswagen Group)

Today 12 June, the companies of Ford and Volkswagen, which concluded at the beginning of the year, the Alliance for the development and production of trucks (meets Ford) and LCV (answers Volkswagen), which should start from 2022, announced the expansion of cooperation.
The Alliance will not financial but purely engineering, which will create a new Board, including top managers of both companies. While Ford and Volkswagen chipped buy American Argo Ai startup that develops drones on the basis of Ford vehicles.
Corporations pool their savings to invest in start-up $7 billion, with $1.6 billion the Volkswagen Group's makes in – kind transfers Argo Ai-owned subsidiary of the firm AID (Autonomous Intelligent Driving), which will become its European division. Accordingly pereimenovaniya startup into an international company and its staff will increase from 500 to 700 employees. The main work Argo Ai is considered to be an electronic platform SDS (Self Driving System) of the 4th grade of autonomy with the expectation of their integration in production models of the companies of Ford and Volkswagen.
Naturally, partners could not be avoided and such areas of cooperation as electric vehicles. So, Volkswagen threw their Ford modular platform MEB under its future of mass BEV. This electric car designed for the European market, will be released in 2023 at the Ford plant in Köln. It is planned that during the first six years of production will be issued 600 thousand electric cars Ford platform VW MEB.
The plans of the Alliance extend into the second joint model. And electric cars will not be simple beginining, but their body will be developed individually for each brand. This is exactly what you need and to use economies of scale – with the increase of the production of components decreasing their cost will slow down and the price of electric vehicles.

PS If startups drones are buying – it means someone important is need! The world expert community has made an unambiguous conclusion that the drones (regardless of electromobility) future, so that the current membership come into play such world bigwigs like Apple and Ford in the Alliance at Volkswagen, it is a no-brainer that the case of Abakarov sooner or later burn out. It is not burn – too high bets are made in the new "great game" for the redivision of the world market. That come into play and such IT-giants as Apple and Google is also quite predictable – a new market of UAVs is expected to grow into one of the most capacious in the world (by 2050, tE. for 30 years, its size could reach $7 trillion (!)). This is a large sum, which will break many of the most high-tech copies and will flow away between the fingers of many billion. The place of Russia in this situation seems to be somewhere between the fishing barge and Harbor tug, with the word white my sail so lonely against the background of steel ships. The country is still to finish the main highway M-11 (without any high-tekavcic lotions) can not, and the cornerstone of drone technology 5G requires masts-repeaters literally every 100-150 meters (!). Such costs to the country will not pull, even if the oil barrel again will be over $150! But the network of ultra-fast 5G mobile access only one of the conditions of admission of drones on public roads. In the background (by our standards) investment in Beijing, e-mobility and besplatnosti, as well as sanctions from the West, rather we have to believe that the domestic import-substituting technology of besplatnosti will come through the MIC. The civil sector in the presence of absence of the production of components will settle for the adaptation of foreign systems to the national specific conditions..