The COVID-19 pandemic is creating many problems for the car industry, and that extends to Ford’s self-driving taxis. While discussing its quarterly earnings, the company revealed that its autonomous vehicle services have been delayed from 2021 to 2022. In a statement to TechCrunch, it said it needed to “evaluate” the effect of COVID-19 on customer behavior and potentially change its strategy. It also wanted to offer future users “peace of mind” knowing that they and their packages would be safe.

Ford COO Jim Farley warned during the earnings call that the pandemic could influence society for “many years to come,” with people seeking out more ways to avoid unnecessary human contact. Chief executive Jim Hackett cited what happened in China as an example, noting that a third of car sales moved online as a result of the pandemic. Fundamental changes like these could spur adoption of driverless taxis and couriers, but could also require adjustments to everything from capacity to the involvement of humans.

Volkswagen Autonomy’s end goal is to bring autonomous driving capabilities to VW’s cars, but former Apple engineer Alex Hitzinger calls it “the world’s best-funded start-up.” Hitzinger, Volkswagen Group’s senior vice president for autonomous driving, will be running the subsidiary. He was reportedly working on Apple’s electric car initiatives before moving onto Volkswagen.

The company isn’t going headfirst into autonomous car production though; its current task is to test the software developed Ford’s and VW’s jointly-owned Argo AI, which will help vehicles navigate with minimal human intervention. Speaking to The Financial Times, Hitzinger admits that “[Google’s] Waymo is still ahead.” But that may not be a big deal in the long run. He surmises that automakers “are all far away from a real commercial, viable product.”

Furthermore, VWAT isn’t focused on passenger vehicles; rather, it’s using “special purpose vehicles” like shuttle vans and busses as proofs of concept before moving onto commercially available sedans, hatchbacks, and SUVs. “We plan to start commercializing autonomous driving at a large scale around the middle of the next decade,” says Hitzinger in VW’s press release.

Last year, VW promised self-parking — a feature common to many vehicles available to the public — by 2020. Earlier this year, Volkswagen started testing autonomous sedans on the streets of Hamburg, Germany — quite a bit later than some other manufacturers. So while VW seems behind the pack when it comes to autonomous vehicles, its investments in software like Argo AI may help the company avoid arriving late to the autonomous driving party.

The automaker and partner Argo AI will start mapping downtown and east Austin in the coming months with manually driven vehicles. Ford will gradually increase the size of the coverage area and its fleet of self-driving cars, with a view towards launching an expansive autonomous taxi and delivery service in 2021.

Sherif Marakby, CEO of the autonomous vehicles division, wrote in a blog post that Ford will have to account for “heavy pedestrian activity, notably people riding bicycles and scooters. Scooters are especially interesting because they’re essentially motorized pedestrians, with speedy and unique movement behavior that needs to be accounted for. Austin has more scooter activity than we’ve seen in other cities where we’re currently testing.”

Austin seems like an ideal proving ground for the vehicles. “With our region’s population on track to double in the next 20 to 25 years, it’s clear we need to re-think how our right-of-way is used if we want people to be able to move around our city,” Mayor Steve Adler said in a statement.

The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization expects vehicle use in the region may double by 2040, but highway capacity will only grow 15 percent. Combined with the fact almost 75 percent of Austin residents commute by driving solo, that’s a recipe for a congestion nightmare. Ford suggests autonomous vehicles will offer people more options to get around, which could ease traffic jams.

Argo AI has pledged $15 million over five years, and the funding will support five faculty, along with a group of doctoral candidates. The center will work to advance autonomous vehicle tech as a whole, but it will also help Argo AI develop its next-generation technology and push into more cities. According to Argo, neither industry nor academia alone can solve the challenges of developing and deploying self-driving cars and the infrastructure needed to support them; together, though, Argo and CMU might stand a chance. Argo isn’t the first autonomous vehicle company to partner with CMU. A few years ago, Uber was charged with poaching the university’s robotics lab of top staff. It’s likely this time around CMU will be looking for a more collaborative endeavor.

The news of VW’s departure comes only a couple of days after Aurora signed with Fiat Chrysler to build platforms for self-driving vans. Along with Fiat, the Amazon-backed Aurora has partnerships with Hyundai and China’s Byton. “Volkswagen Group has been a wonderful partner to Aurora since the early days of development of the Aurora Driver. As our Driver matures and our platform grows in strength, we continue to work with a growing array of partners who complement our expertise and expand the reach of our product,” said Aurora in a statement.

VW’s exit from its partnership with Aurora may have to do with the autonomous driving system’s need to stay independent. While partnering with an existing self-driving platform means automakers can get their autonomous vehicles on the road faster, they miss out on customizing the technology to fit their own cars. VW initially tried to buy Aurora, but the Pittsburgh-based self-driving startup refused. Aurora hoped to become the industry standard for self-driving tech by licensing its platforms to many different automakers. Ford’s partnership with VW, which began last June, may be a better fit for both automakers; the companies are already working together to develop electric cars.