The Swedish Einride company wants to start testing the robotised truck named T-Pod later this year on public roads in Sweden. After next summer the first trucks will be on the road between Helsingborg and Gothenborg, transporting goods for Lidl.
The distance of 200 km should be just enough for the batery capacity of the three axled driverless eeh.. thing. T-Pod is fully electric and has no cab. It can only be operated with remote control or completely automated. The seven metres long truck is capable of transporting 15 pallets. The maximum total weight is 20 tonnes.
The website of Einride predicts about 200 T-Pod’s on the road by 2020, transporting 2 milion pallets a year between the two Swedish cities. That should save 33.000 tons of CO2. The company is rather ambitious with the prediction that in 2035 20% of all road transport is being operated by T-Pods.