Many businesses are considering different plans to make automotive artificial intelligence profitable.

　　許多企業(yè)正在考慮使汽車人工智能盈利的不同計劃。

　　The founders of Argo AI – along with automaker partners Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG - believe their plan will work. It is different from those of some of their more highly valued rivals.

　　Argo AI的創(chuàng)始人以及汽車制造商合作伙伴福特汽車公司和大眾汽車公司相信他們的計劃將會奏效。它不同于某些其較高價值的競爭對手。

　　Argo AI wants to get customers that will use robot vehicles for many purposes, including transporting goods and people.

　　Argo AI希望吸引那些將機器人車輛用于許多目的的客戶，包括運輸貨物和人員。

　　Background and business plan

　　背景和業(yè)務(wù)計劃

　　Bryan Salesky, the leader of Argo AI, started developing automated vehicles 12 years ago, in a competition.

　　Argo AI的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者Bryan Salesky在12年前的一項競賽中開始開發(fā)自動駕駛汽車。

　　The self-driving systems developer is now at the center of a multibillion-dollar investment. Argo AI and its partners think that self-driving vehicle technology must be good for more than just replacing taxi drivers.

　　無人駕駛系統(tǒng)開發(fā)商現(xiàn)在處于數(shù)十億美元投資的中心。 Argo AI及其合作伙伴認為，自動駕駛汽車技術(shù)不僅要取代出租車司機，還必須要有更多好處。

　　"I hate the word robotaxi," Salesky said in a rare interview at Argo's Pittsburgh headquarters. "There are so many applications and businesses to be built."

　　薩利斯基在Argo匹茲堡總部的一次罕見采訪中說：“我討厭機器人這個詞?！?“有很多應(yīng)用程序和業(yè)務(wù)要建立。”

　　A profit-sharing deal is at the heart of The Argo business plan. Ford and VW will pay Argo fees based on the distance traveled by vehicles equipped with Argo's technology. Details of that deal have not been reported until now, notes the Reuters news agency.

　　利潤共享交易是Argo業(yè)務(wù)計劃的核心。福特和大眾將根據(jù)配備Argo技術(shù)的車輛行駛的距離支付Argo費用。路透社報道，有關(guān)這筆交易的細節(jié)直到現(xiàn)在還沒有報道。

　　Among the possible uses of Argo's technology: Long-distance trucking for e-commerce.

　　Argo技術(shù)的可能用途包括：電子商務(wù)的長途貨運。

　　Argo's plan is to provide self-driving systems that Ford will launch in late 2021 in three U.S. cities.

　　Argo的計劃是提供福特將于2021年下半年在美國三個城市推出的自動駕駛系統(tǒng)。

　　VW leaders told Reuters they expect to follow in 2022 or 2023 with a VW-designed all-electric vehicle.

　　大眾領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人告訴路透社，他們預(yù)計將在2022或2023年推出大眾設(shè)計的全電動汽車。

　　Competition

　　競爭

　　Some rivals are not persuaded that Argo has any lead.

　　一些競爭對手沒有說服Argo領(lǐng)先。

　　Glen De Vos is chief technology officer of Aptiv, which recently bought self-driving startups nuTonomy and Ottomatika.

　　Glen De Vos是Aptiv的首席技術(shù)官，該公司最近收購了自動駕駛初創(chuàng)公司nuTonomy和Ottomatika。

　　He noted Aptiv's partnership with the ride-sharing company Lyft. He said the companies are testing self-driving vehicles, and added that Argo "doesn't have the component engineering capability that Aptiv has."

　　他指出Aptiv與拼車公司Lyft的合作關(guān)系。他說，兩家公司正在測試自動駕駛汽車，并補充說Argo“不具備Aptiv所具備的組件工程能力?！?/span>

　　Investors so far see less value in Argo than companies whose work centers on robotaxis. For example, the company Waymo is valued at $105 billion. Another, Cruise, is valued at $19 billion.

　　到目前為止，與以機器人為中心的公司相比，投資者在Argo中看到的價值更低。例如，Waymo公司的估值為1050億美元。另一個是克魯斯，價值190億美元。

　　Argo's value is estimated at $7.25 billion following Volkswagen's $1.9 billion investment.

　　在大眾汽車公司19億美元的投資之后，Argo的價值估計為72.5億美元。

　　重點詞匯：

　　Words in This Story：

　　application – n. the use of an idea, method, law, etc., in a particular situation or for a particular purpose

　　component – n. one of the parts of something (such as a system or mixture): an important piece of something

　　e-commerce -- n. activities that relate to the buying and selling of goods and services over the Internet