We have seen a couple of big news days for two of the world's biggest automakers. On Monday, Ford used the North American International Auto Show in Detroit to announce the Shelby GT500, an uber-Mustang, as well as new Explorer crossovers. The same day, Volkswagen—one of the few German brands to attend Detroit this year—revealed the latest Passat sedan and an $800 million investment in its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The US plant is to become VW's North American base for manufacturing electric vehicles, adding 1,000 new jobs with production of electric vehicles using the new MEB architecture beginning in 2022.

You'd think that either company would be relaxing at this point; after all, both just laid out some pretty strong plans to sell a lot of vehicles here in the US market. But throughout yesterday, automotive Twitter (yes, it's a thing) was a-buzz with news of something else, a joint press conference between the two rivals. On Tuesday morning we got our answer: a global alliance between Ford and Volkswagen, with each contributing one of its strengths in an area where the other has a weakness.

It's not a merger, and no shares are trading hands between the companies. But it will involve plenty of collaboration. First up? New commercial vans and medium-sized pickups for the global (read not-US) market. And that's medium-sized as determined by those markets, so we're talking Ranger-sized, not F-250 monsters. Ford will build pickup trucks to be badged by both automakers, starting in 2022. It will also develop a replacement for the Transit van, with VW taking responsibility for a new city van due in 2023.

These products made the most sense, not just because of the relative strengths and weaknesses they represent in Ford and VW's product portfolios, but thanks to timing as well. Both OEMs are neatly aligned in terms of product cycles for these vehicles, with each needing to start work on their respective next generations.

Electrification is obvious

Although the commercial vehicles will be the first fruits of this alliance, Ford President and CEO Jim Hackett and VW Group CEO Herbert Diess explained that they are actively pursuing other areas that are ripe for this kind of collaboration. Electrification is the obvious one. VW has invested billions of dollars into its new MEB architecture for mass-produced electric vehicles (for more info I highly recommend this deep dive by Jalopnik's David Tracy); Ford, by contrast, is lagging far behind when it comes to building battery EVs.

"No other OEM has a more robust approach to electromobility than VW, and we are prepared to share that advantage," Diess said in the press conference.

However, when asked if this meant VW was licensing MEB to Ford, Diess' answer left me a little confused. "We are in constructive open dialog to leverage the technology. Probably not worldwide, but they are viable for Europe and China," he said.

It is quite possible that the remark about China and Europe was specific to the new pickup truck, as that point was made again by Diess in response to a different question. It's something we'll be seeking to clarify with the two OEMs in the near future.

Ford boss Hackett also had a note of caution when it came to the widespread switch to BEVs. In response to another question, he told the audience that "we still have to prove to the world that they'll shift to these vehicles"—something that will be a lot easier to do if and when the industry starts building compelling and affordable BEVs at scale.

Autonomous tech, too?

Autonomous vehicles represent another possible area for collaboration among the alliance, although here there was much less information forthcoming. In part this is due to the long timeline from here to full autonomy—something Hackett referred to by pointing out the lack of autonomous vehicles on sale at NAIAS. But it's also unclear how useful collaboration would be in this field. Each OEM is already actively working with startups on the autonomous driving stack—Ford working with Argo AI, VW Group with Aurora.

Time and again I've been told in interviews across the industry that in these kinds of relationships, the OEM is primarily responsible for systems integration and then aligning the user experience to the brand's values, so a self-driving Ford feels Ford-like, and a self-driving VW feels like a VW. Then again, there are plenty of other aspects of an autonomous mobility solution other than just the sensors and software stack. Ford has plenty of experience with its Smart Mobility experiments, and VW is building out the Moia brand for vehicle sharing and other kinds of new transportation ideas.