无人驾驶汽车的不同想法

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

　　许多企业正在考虑使汽车人工智能盈利的不同计划。

　　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的创始人以及汽车制造商合作伙伴福特汽车公司和大众汽车公司相信他们的计划将会奏效。它不同于某些其较高价值的竞争对手。

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

　　Argo AI希望吸引那些将机器人车辆用于许多目的的客户，包括运输货物和人员。

　　Background and business plan

　　背景和业务计划

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

　　Argo AI的领导者Bryan Salesky在12年前的一项竞赛中开始开发自动驾驶汽车。

　　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.

　　无人驾驶系统开发商现在处于数十亿美元投资的中心。 Argo AI及其合作伙伴认为，自动驾驶汽车技术不仅要取代出租车司机，还必须要有更多好处。

　　"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."

　　萨利斯基在Argo匹兹堡总部的一次罕见采访中说：“我讨厌机器人这个词。” “有很多应用程序和业务要建立。”

　　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.

　　利润共享交易是Argo业务计划的核心。福特和大众将根据配备Argo技术的车辆行驶的距离支付Argo费用。路透社报道，有关这笔交易的细节直到现在还没有报道。

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

　　Argo技术的可能用途包括：电子商务的长途货运。

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

　　Argo的计划是提供福特将于2021年下半年在美国三个城市推出的自动驾驶系统。

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

　　大众领导人告诉路透社，他们预计将在2022或2023年推出大众设计的全电动汽车。

　　Competition

　　竞争

　　Some rivals are not persuaded that Argo has any lead.

　　一些竞争对手没有说服Argo领先。

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

　　Glen De Vos是Aptiv的首席技术官，该公司最近收购了自动驾驶初创公司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与拼车公司Lyft的合作关系。他说，两家公司正在测试自动驾驶汽车，并补充说Argo“不具备Aptiv所具备的组件工程能力。”

　　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.

　　到目前为止，与以机器人为中心的公司相比，投资者在Argo中看到的价值更低。例如，Waymo公司的估值为1050亿美元。另一个是克鲁斯，价值190亿美元。

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

　　在大众汽车公司19亿美元的投资之后，Argo的价值估计为72.5亿美元。

　　重点词汇：

　　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