After a Ford- and Argo AI-branded vehicle was spotted making laps around The Gulch on Thursday, an Argo spokesperson confirmed the self-driving tech company is testing two cars in Nashville this week.
The spokesperson added that the vehicles, advertised as “self-driving test vehicles,” are being manually driven by Argo operators for so-called mapping missions and would not be tested in Nashville for longer than a few weeks.
Last summer, Argo AI, Lyft and Ford Motor Company announced they were working together to commercialize autonomous rides service and ultimately roll out a fleet of at least 1,000 vehicles on the Lyft network. The initial announcement included testing in Austin and Miami. Argo AI is testing in six other cities — Munich and Hamburg in Germany, Pittsburgh (where Argo AI is headquartered), Detroit, Palo Alto and Washington, D.C.
Until now, the company had not said it would be testing in Nashville.
When asked if the trio of companies either had plans to add or was considering adding Nashville to its pilot plan, the Argo spokesperson issued the following statement: “Argo AI regularly conducts mapping missions in order to improve our capabilities, evaluate different road infrastructure and support virtual testing (or computer simulations) as a normal course of business and product development of our self-driving system. Our efforts do not necessarily indicate future testing or commercial operations in these locations."
Will Nashville see a fleet of self-driving vehicles in the near future?
Other than the obvious sighting, there are several factors fueling this question. In 2015, San Francisco-based ridesharing giant Lyft expanded to Nashville, opening a customer service operations center. In 2021 Lyft, Ford Motor Company and Argo AI announced they would be working together to commercialize autonomous ride services. Just a few months later, Ford announced plans to build a $5.6 billion campus in West Tennessee to manufacture electric vehicles.
Lyft and Ford did not respond to requests for comment.