Volkswagen snubs self-driving startup Aurora, eyes Ford partnership

Enlarge / Ford CEO Jim Hackett, left, talks to Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess in January 2019. (credit: Boris Roessler/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Aurora—a self-driving startup founded by former leaders of self-driving projects at Tesla, Uber, and Google’s Waymo—aims to make its self-driving technology an industry standard by licensing it to multiple car companies.

The company has made impressive progress securing automotive partners. On Monday, Aurora announced that it had scored a new partnership with Fiat Chrysler to develop self-driving commercial vehicles. That was in addition to existing deals with Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Chinese electric carmaker Byton.

On Tuesday, however, the Financial Times reported a significant setback: Volkswagen was ending its deal with Aurora.