Volkswagen AG is planning to invest around $1.7 billion in a self-driving car venture with Ford Motor Co.’s Argo subsidiary, according to people familiar with the matter.

After months of talks, the German and U.S. car makers have agreed to make Ford’s autonomous-driving unit Argo the nucleus of an equally held joint venture that could receive additional assets from Volkswagen over time…

That unit includes Pittsburgh-based Argo, in which Ford agreed in early 2017 to invest $1 billion over five years. Ford holds a majority stake in Argo, a company run by Chief Executive Bryan Salesky, who formerly served as a director of hardware development at Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car program, Waymo.

Rival General Motors Co. last year received commitments for more than $5 billion total for its autonomous business, Cruise, in separate deals with Honda Motor Co. and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.
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