The American self-driving car company Argo has received a $2.6 billion (approx £2 billion) investment from Volkswagen to expand into Europe.

Its CEO Bryan Salesky has blogged that the move to add a centre in Europe “differentiates us as the only self-driving technology platform company with partnerships and commercial agreements for deployment across the U.S. and Europe.”

Munich becomes its fifth engineering centre, adding to the global HQ in Pittsburgh and US facilities in Detroit, Palo Alto, and New Jersey.

“Our mission is built on the importance of developing trust in self-driving technology,” continues Salesky. “Now that we will be working across two continents with our partners Ford and Volkswagen, that mission is more important than ever. With support from two of the world’s largest automakers, our future is bright. Our self-driving system has the largest geographic deployment potential of any autonomous driving technology to date. It also has the potential to be integrated into many vehicle types across multiple brands.”