What does Ford’s decision to drop Argo AI Mean for autonomous driving?

Big flashy billion-dollar investments. Leaders optimistically pronouncing totally unrealistic launch dates. Geeky engineers becoming the darlings of the moment. Yes, the story of Ford’s foray into autonomous cars has it all!

The autonomous driving bubble inflates

The Defense Research Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) kicked off the modern race to invent self-driving cars with its 2004 Grand Challenge, an invitation to scientists and engineers to traverse 142 miles across the challenging terrain across the desert in Primm, Nevada. The winner would earn a prize of $1 million. Nobody won the prize because nobody finished.

Not to be deterred, the agency sponsored a second challenge in 2005, and five teams completed it. Stanford’s entry, a car nicknamed “Stanley” won the prize — $2 million.

A third challenge, named the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007, put more pressure on the software powering the cars, calling on them to handle more complex tasks, like obeying traffic laws in a mock urban environment. This time, a team from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh claimed the prize with their entry, “Boss.”