ford motor co said on tuesday it was creating a separate 4 billion unit to house its selfdriving vehicle operations and is seeking outside investors following a similar move in late may by detroit rival general motors co with its cruise automation unit ford said it hoped to accelerate business opportunities with the creation of the new unit gms spinoff of cruise drew a 225billion investment from softbank group boosting gms share price that day by 13 percent softbanks 196percent stake valued cruise at 115 billion gm paid an estimated 1 billion in 2016 to acquire the san franciscobased selfdriving startup advt ford has seemingly taken a step out of gms playbook to try to unlock value from its selfdriving business said rbc capital markets analyst joseph spak in midday trade ford shares were up 24 percent to 1072ford said it would invest 4 billion through 2023 in its newly formed ford autonomous vehicles llc including the 1 billion it previously had earmarked for argo ai the pittsburghbased selfdriving startup that ford acquired in 2017 the new unit to be headed by vice president sherif marakby and based at fords new corktown campus in detroit will house selfdriving vehicle research engineering and systems integration as well as business strategy and development for the automakers future selfdriving vehicle fleet ford said it hoped to accelerate business opportunities with the creation of the new unit which it said is structured to take on thirdparty investment gm cruise and alphabet incs waymo are often described as leading the pack of technology and auto companies competing to create selfdriving cars and integrate them into ride services fleets alphabet plans to launch a selfdriving ride service later this year while gm cruise has targeted the introduction of a similar service in 2019 ford has said it expects to put selfdriving vehicles into commercial service by 2021 reuters published on jul 25 2018 at 0938 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etauto app get realtime updates save your favourite articles scan to download app ford motor company autonomous car selfdriving startup waymo general motors homenewsindustryford follows gms cruise move with selfdriving spinoff