World’s first commercial installation of all-electric, autonomous truck

DB Schenker and Einride have launched the installation for the first commercial use of a T-pod – an all-electric, autonomous truck – at a DB Schenker facility in Jönköping, central Sweden.

The T-pod will travel continuously to and from a warehouse, paving the way for a sustainable transition of road freight transportation.

Einride’s T-pod has no driver’s cab but is supervised and can be teleoperated by a human operator, from hundreds of miles away.

Not having a driver’s cab enables a smaller vehicle, increased loading capacity, greater flexibility, lower production costs, lower operating costs and optimised energy consumption, allowing the T-pod to run solely on batteries.

A fleet of T-pods can be coordinated by an intelligent routing system, optimising delivery time, battery life and energy consumption, making road freight transportation as efficient as possible.

Einride and DB Schenker initiated their partnership in April. The agreement includes the pilot in Jönköping and an option for additional pilots internationally.

“We at Schenker are working at full speed on sustainable and innovative logistics. Autonomous driving will become increasingly important for this,” said Jochen Thewes, CEO of DB Schenker.

“Together with Einride, we want to bring the first autonomous, fully electric truck onto public roads in the near future and thus set new standards for tomorrow’s logistics.”

Robert Falck, CEO and founder of Einride, said: “Heavy road transport is responsible for a substantial part of global CO2 emissions. By substituting electricity for diesel, we reduce CO2 emissions by 90 percent.

“We are happy and grateful that DB Schenker has chosen to be part of this revolution, disrupting a huge global market.”