First world driverless electric truck on the roads in Sweden

Einride T-Pod Autonomous 26-ton Electric Truck has been described as a world first electric driverless truck, and he has begun making daily freight deliveries on a public road in Jönköping, Sweden according to its developer, Einride, and DB Schenker, the logistics customer.

Supervised remotely by an operator who is able to take over control if really necessary, the “T-Pod” truck is the first time tested on the road without a driver inside the vehicle ready to take over.

Einride CEO Robert Falck, formerly an executive at Volvo, has said that the company is holding partnership talks with various suppliers to help scale production and deliver orders.

“This public road permit is a major milestone… and it is a step to commercialising autonomous technology on roads,” he said.

“Since we’re a software and operational first company, a partnership with a manufacturing company is something that we see as a core moving forward,” Falck added.

The T-Pod weighs 26 tonnes when full and has no drivers cabin. This, according to Einride, makes it 60% cheaper to operate than a diesel truck with a driver.

Jochen Thewes, DB Schenker CEO, said that his company chose Einride to work on the project because T-Pod “straddles the two biggest sector transformations: digitisation and electrification.”

“We believe that Einride is the best concept out there for now,” he continued.

Besides DB Schenker, Einride has orders from the Swedish delivery company Svenska Retursystem, German supermarket chain Lidl and five companies on the Fortune 500.

Einride plans to have 200 vehicles on the roads by the end of next year.

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