Einride T-Pod Goes Public

Commercial Operations on public road of Einride's cabless, autonomous fully electric T-POD truck marks yet another interesting development

- Rutger Andersson

At DB Schenker’s facility in Jönköping, Sweden, and interesting event unfolded in May 2019. It was also of historic importance with the first cab-less, electric truck – the Einride T-pod – driving on a public road. Representing a major milestone in Einride’s history, and of its efforts to create a safe, efficient and sustainable transport solution based on autonomous electric vehicles with a potential to reduce CO2 emissions from road freight transport by up to 90 per cent, the T-Pod ran about 350 m at a low speed between one of Schenker’s warehouse hotels and Schenker’s terminal in Jönköping. About 100 m of the vehicle’s journey was on public roads, termed as ‘Skruvgatan’ in Sweden. The ‘Skruvgatan’ constituted of an entrance to Schenker’s terminal area as well. Premiering to transport goods between a warehouse and terminal at the facility, as part of a commercial flow, the T-Pod took off in the presence of Robert Falck, founder and CEO of Einride, Jochen Thewes, CEO of DB Schenker, and Mats Grundius, CEO of DB Schenker Cluster Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland.

Terming the development as significant, Falck expressed, “Einride could do this because our partner and customer DB Schenker opened up to the idea of collaborating.” “It led to a major milestone in Einride’s history,” he added.