Ford is closing its R&D center in Tel Aviv, Israel, which was responsible for autonomous vehicle development. It also laid off all staff (about a dozen employees). The closure is due to the termination of the Ford- and Volkswagen-backed autonomous vehicle unit, Argo AI, and the company's shift toward technologies that offer short-term profitability.

The company has not disclosed any specific details on redundancy packages or remunerations yet.

The Tel Aviv center included a vehicle lab for proof of concept and AI work conducted by the SAIPS team, a company specializing in computer vision and machine learning acquired by Ford in 2016.

Analyst QuickTake: We notice continuous struggles of autonomous vehicle tech developers in bringing their products to the market. In fact, General Motors’ (GM’s) autonomous car subsidiary, Cruise, was asked by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to reduce its current fleet of about 400 robotaxis in San Francisco by 50% after a crash in August. Apple also scaled back its plans for a self-driving passenger vehicle project in December 2022; peer startup Pony.ai announced an internal restructuring in November; and Aurora Innovation is also reportedly considering strategic actions, including the sale of the company. Intel’s autonomous tech development unit, Mobileye , also went public in October 2022 , but only at one-third of the valuation initially targeted. These recent developments suggest that autonomous vehicles will take a while to hit their stride.