Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it is rolling out what it calls its third-generation autonomous vehicle, including in Detroit and Corktown.

The news comes amid reports that Ford is near an agreement with Volkswagen to partner on self-driving vehicle development.

Peter Rander, president of Argo AI, Ford's autonomous vehicle partner, wrote in a blog post that Argo is deploying the Ford Fusion Hybrids "in all five major cities we’re operating in: Pittsburgh, Palo Alto, Miami, Washington, D.C., and now Detroit — where we’re expanding our testing footprint in Michigan beyond Dearborn."

"Bringing these vehicles to Detroit gives us the opportunity to learn how they operate in yet another environment — one where we have engineering operations in close proximity and where Corktown serves as Ford’s base for self-driving vehicle development," Rander wrote. "Every city represents a unique opportunity to make our self-driving system smarter because of the exposure to different road infrastructure design, driving behavior and even traffic light placement."

Meanwhile, reports say that Volkswagen dropped its autonomous vehicle partnership with Aurora Innovation Inc., an Amazon-backed Silicon Valley startup that on Tuesday announced a new arrangement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Aurora is led by some of the people who led self-driving development efforts at Google, Tesla and Uber. The Free Press reported Tuesday that FCA will work with Aurora to integrate the Aurora Driver self-driving platform into commercial vehicles (possibly Ram or Fiat commercial).

In reporting the VW-Aurora breakup, Bloomberg said that "months of negotiations with Ford and its autonomous affiliate Argo AI are near fruition and a deal could be announced as early as July, people familiar with the situation said. Most of the thorniest issues have been resolved and the two companies envision a comprehensive collaboration creating a global colossus in the self-driving space, these people said."

Ford and VW announced during January's Detroit auto show that they would collaborate on commercial vehicles and a small pickup to be sold in Europe, South America and South Africa, and were continuing more complex talks on electric and self-driving technology.

Ford repeated on Tuesday its long-standing statement on those discussions:

“Our talks with Volkswagen continue. Discussions have been productive across a number of areas. We’ll share updates as details become more firm,” spokeswoman Jennifer Flake told the Free Press.

Carmakers see tens of billions of dollars in annual potential for autonomous delivery, robo-taxis and other self-driving services and spin-offs, but the cost of development is daunting. Ford and VW would be seeking to leap toward the top of an arena led by General Motors' Cruise affiliate, which has partnered with Honda; and Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo division.

More on freep.com:

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Ford, VW form alliance to develop commercial vans, pickups globally for 2022

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Detroit residents and visitors will begin to see Argo's colorful Fusions — which have safety drivers — around town.

Rander's post explained the challenges autonomous cars face in Detroit.

"Unlike Washington, D.C., and its common traffic circles or Pittsburgh and its famous multipoint intersections, Detroit roads don’t have a singular defining feature — the city and its metro area contain all of these and more, with almost every kind of road you can expect to see," he wrote.

"Some Detroit streets are wide and can often have unmarked lanes, presenting our vehicles with the challenge of having to reason through how to navigate while predicting what other drivers may do, so we don’t cause unnecessary congestion. Other residential streets are narrow two-lane roads with cars parked on either side. Combine that with overhanging tree branches, which we don’t often see in other urban environments, and you’ve got a very dynamic situation. Add in pop-up construction that’s occurring all over the city and you’ve got a diverse, condensed training ground that really informs our development efforts."

He said the vehicles have "a significantly upgraded sensor suite, including new sets of radar and cameras with higher resolution and higher dynamic range" and "redundant braking and steering systems that help maintain vehicle motion control in the event one of the units stops functioning."

"These types of redundant systems are included to help ensure the safe deployment of self-driving vehicles, granting them the ability to detect faults and preserve their ability to safely stop or pull over as needed," Rander wrote.

Contact Randy Essex: REssex@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@randyessex. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter.