Volkswagen And Ford To Join Forces, 2019

To what extent this partnership will eventually carry, we aren’t sure. However, Ford and Volkswagen have announced that they’re set to form an alliance. Via CBT Automotive Network, “According to Volkswagen, the plan is for the two companies to join forces in designing and manufacturing trucks and cars, with hopes to release the new vehicles as early as 2022.” The nature of the relationship is yet to be seen. It could possibly lead us to believe that models might see a dual release. This is much like how we saw the Ford Ranger and Mazda B-Series pickup trucks mirror one another in the mid-90s.

Other sources have announced that the brands are going to get the ball rolling on a joint venture surrounding an autonomous vehicle. The Wall Street Journal announced that “VW is preparing to invest $600 million as an equity investment in Argo.” Argo is a self-driving joint venture between the two companies with each of the two owning half of the business. They continue that Volkswagen would invest $1.1 billion in working capital in order to supplement the new venture’s research and development. I guess that this is very much a case of the brands deciding that perhaps two heads are better than one.

In the video below, we get a take from Humble Mechanic that talks a little bit about how the brands are working together as of today. As it turns out, VW is still VW and Ford is still Ford. However, we never know what could be sparked when these folks end up in the same room. Perhaps it’ll be nothing more than Ford trucks running around with Volkswagen engines, perhaps, the two will end up merging into one company to overcome some of the challenges that the current market has been willing to provide for automakers who are looking to move fast on progress.