TechCrunch rides along with Einride, a Swedish electric drone-trucking startup that’s bringing “self-driving pods” to U.S. public roads this year in partnership with GE Appliances:
Einride’s pods are built without a front cabin for a human safety operator, which the company says required approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) in order to operate on public roads.
“Other companies are retrofitting existing trucks to become autonomous, but we are doing the opposite,” Robert Falck, CEO and founder at Einride, told TechCrunch. “We are building a brand new way to do autonomous shipping from the ground up which results in this new type of vehicle design and functionality.”
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Einride did say that the approval is conditional upon the company adhering to a set location and timing — Einride’s pod will be operating on a mixed traffic, mile-long stretch of road between a GEA factory and a warehouse in Selmer, Tennessee beginning in the third quarter of 2022. Einride has been piloting its pods with GEA since November 2021 at the company’s fenced warehouse in Louisville, during which time Einride tested the metal of its technology in a closed facility with predetermined routes and a controlled environment.
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A remote pod operator, which Einride says is a key to helping the company’s business model become scalable in the future, will monitor operations and assist or guide when needed during critical, low-speed operations, according to the company. For example, the remote operator might assist the vehicle in backing up to a dock or waiting for workers to unload the pod. Einride says the vehicle can operate autonomously in most other situations.