California Gives Ford's Argo AI Green Light to Test AVs

Argo AI, the Pittsburgh-based firm Ford pumped $1 billion into and handed responsibility for educating its self-driving vehicles, just received a go-ahead for testing in the State of California. The company gained a testing permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday, making its autonomous trials perfectly legal on public roads.

Ford’s current trajectory has its autonomous vehicles entering the commercial market by 2021. That’s two years after General Motors promised to do the same. However, recent events cast doubt over whether GM will be able to meet its self-imposed deadlines (some of which dictate future investments from its partners) and start mass production of computer-controlled cars by the end of this year. It’s not just GM that’s having trouble, either. A critical look into autonomous development shows many companies are struggling with advancing the technology to a point that would make it commercially viable.

The Blue Oval might be better positioned in the autonomous race than initially presumed.

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  • FreedMike Non-GLI VW Jetta. Even the base version is a good driver, there's a manual version, and the whole line is reasonably priced. The Sport model is a fine little driver's car for not a lot of bucks. And...NO CVTs.Also: Hyundai Sonata N-Line. It's a modern day GTO (think modest family car with a crud ton of performance), and it's reasonably priced. Yes, it's overpowered, but it's also sort of hilariously overpowered. With the loss of the Honda Accord Sport 2.0T, it's also the last survivor in the midsize, mass-market performance market, which I mourn losing.
  • Bouzouki Under-rated? Wrong question? What is the LEAST over-rated new car? That is the question."With all the excitement of the NY Auto show". Really? Tell us about the fun to drive cars with manual transmissions that you saw, that aren't wired for automakers to sell our data, how were they?What's that? There were none. Thank you.Yes, the THREE-cylinder cars are not as over-rated as the automakers would like, like the new Encore. It's not much fun to drive, but it has a great touchscreen--woo-hoo!!!
  • ToolGuy you make it sound so exciting i really wish i could attend in perzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  • ToolGuy Yes let's be fair to Ford Motor Company, after all the Ford dealership has been so fair to everyone.
  • FreedMike We were in NYC in January for a cruise - the port is just up West Street from Hudson Yards. My plan was to pop the question on the top of the Empire State Building the night before we left, but the wind chills up there were hovering around -2,445 degrees. Ah well...cruise ships are a good place to get engaged. And, yeah, it's getting expensive to get around, but we found Lyft was way cheaper from the port to LaGuardia than a taxi would have been. Might be a better option for short hops too, but we didn't really check. You could ask what poor folks do to get around Manhattan, but that answer's the same as it's always been: MTA. We rode it during our trip; no problems (aside from figuring out which train goes where). BTW...this was the view from our balcony as we came back into town.