In 2019, the Swedish startup Einride became the first company to use a driverless electric truck on a public road. It was supervised remotely by a human who could take over the controls at any time, but unlike many of its rivals, it did not have a safety driver on board.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the market for autonomous trucks has grown to over $35 billion since 2019 and is expected to be more than double by 2032.
Some of the early players in the sector have had a challenging start, such as San Diego-based TuSimple, which delisted from NASDAQ and left the US market to concentrate on China, and San Francisco-based Embark, which laid off 70% of its employees and was acquired by Applied Intuition.
However, Einride appears to still be doing well; the company won contracts worth more than $3.6 billion last year and obtained $500 million in funding at the end of 2022, when startup funding was severely declining.
Following the signing of a contract with Dubai’s Jebel Ali, the 11th busiest container port in the world, to build what Einride founder Robert Falck claims will be the world’s largest autonomous trucking network, the company is now adding the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to its roster of countries where it operates thousands of trucks.
The agreement between Einride and DP World, one of the largest port operators in the world, will result in the port having a fleet of trucks that are entirely electric and some of which will also be autonomous. Einride is currently conducting tests, and business will begin in October 2024.
The company claims that if it achieves its goal of 1,600 daily “container movements” by the end of the year, it will save 14,600 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually—enough to eliminate approximately 3,000 gas-powered passenger cars from the road.
“It’s a groundbreaking contract,” Falck said. “I would say the most intriguing proof of concept and on-scale application of electric and autonomous transport systems in the world. The region has the potential to be on the frontier of this.”
The port will have a fleet of 100 electric trucks connected to Einride’s digital operating system, Saga. Saga uses artificial intelligence to select the most energy-efficient route for each job and maximize efficiency.
Both the company’s electric trucks with a driver inside and the fully autonomous cabless trucks feature this software component. Falck claims, however, that this distinction doesn’t merit too much attention.
According to Falck, Einride provides hardware specifications to third-party manufacturers, such as Scania, a well-known Swedish manufacturer of commercial vehicles, and then provides its own clients with software and services to operate the resulting vehicles.
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The agreement follows another one that was made last year with the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure of the United Arab Emirates to set up a “freight mobility grid” called Falcon Rise that will run for 240 miles between Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah.
The goal of the project is to connect important infrastructure areas like ports, airports, and industrial areas by deploying 2,000 electric trucks and 200 autonomous electric trucks that will use eight charging stations along the route. It is still in the beginning stages of development.
While Einride is taking a more conservative approach for the time being, Falcon Rise will eventually have approximately one autonomous truck for every ten trucks in its fleet. Globally, between 2 and 3 percent of installed capacity is autonomous. However, it will increase to 20 to 25% in five years. And 15 years from now, 40 to 50 percent.
The company will begin by traveling slowly between two warehouses, because there is a legitimate business case for doing so in freight transportation. In this manner, you can safely learn, grow, and proceed step by step.
