A driverless electric truck began daily freight deliveries on a public road in Sweden on Wednesday.
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In what the company behind it is claiming is a world first, a cabless, driverless truck manufactured by Swedish start-up Einride has started making regular delivery runs at logistic company DB Schenker's facility in Jönköping, Sweden, which also features a stretch of public road.

While other companies, such as Tesla, TuSimple and Embark operate driverless trucks, a human operator is always in the cab.

According to Reuters, documents from the Swedish Transport Authority show that Einride's T-Pod autonomous truck has permission to make "short trips between a warehouse and a terminal" on a public road in an industrial area where speeds are generally low, something that is reflected by the fact that the permit apparently allows the T-Pod to travel at speeds of just "up to 5 kmh."

Einride's T-Pod is a level 4 autonomous vehicle (the second highest level of autonomy) and uses the Nvidia Drive platform to process visual data in real time. It has no driver's cab, which the company says enables a smaller vehicle, which in turn increases loading capacity (the T-Pod weighs 26 tonnes when fully loaded).

Einride says it also has greater flexibility, lower production costs, lower operating costs and optimised energy consumption, reducing operating costs by around 60 per cent over a diesel vehicle operated by a human driver.

The T-Pod is fully self-driving but is supervised and can be remote-controlled by a human operator via a fast 5G connection.

Robert Falck, CEO of Einride, told Reuters that the company was in partnership talks with major suppliers to help scale production and deliver orders, and the firm did not rule out future tie-ups with large truck makers.

"Heavy road transport is responsible for a substantial part of global CO2 emissions. The pilot in Jönköping is a small but important step towards a sustainable transport system. The permit from the Swedish Transport Agency is an important testimonial to the safety of the solution," he said.


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