'We are the catalyst for a sustainable transportation system’
Gothenburg company Einride was the first in Sweden and the USA to operate electrified and autonomous trucks in commercial traffic. Today, they have one of the largest heavy electric truck fleets in the world.
The transportation and technology company Einride was founded in 2016, and in just seven years, the company has transitioned from being a small startup to having more than 500 employees in Europe and the USA.
“We are the catalyst for a more sustainable transportation system,” says Tomas Ohlson, founding engineer at Einride.
The business idea is based on a transformation of the transportation system – from fossil-fueled systems to electrified, digital, and autonomous. Among the company's employees, you can find software developers from Spotify and Google, rocket scientists from France, and engineers from Tesla.
Tomas Ohlson joined Einride in 2017 as their first engineer, initially working on building the software. He has grown the team from five people to several hundred. He has been involved in most of what the company has built, but his primary focus has been on autonomous systems, where he has led the software team in recent years.
“The autonomous vehicles are the key to our vision of an efficient and sustainable transportation system. There is no one offering freight in the way we do today, and we want to pave the way forward,” he says.
Software is the solution
Einride doesn't sell trucks that drive from one point to another but instead has a complete ecosystem of products and services, including truck fleets, charging infrastructure, software, and networks. Therefore, they focus on software development in the trucks and on ensuring that the entire system is utilised as efficiently as possible.
“It can only be done with advanced software and machine learning. Software is the brain of the system, and with the help of AI and sophisticated algorithms, it enables electrified transport on a large scale. We have a complete ecosystem of truck fleets, charging infrastructure, and a freight mobility platform that collects data from drivers and customers, as well as from trucks, providing information on battery and charging status,”, says Tomas Ohlson.
Contracts worth billions
In recent years, Einride has signed contracts with major companies worldwide. The latest was with the United Arab Emirates, where Einride plans to deliver 2,000 electric trucks, 200 autonomous trucks, and eight charging stations with over 500 charging points.
Moving forward, it's about scaling up the heavy electric and autonomous truck fleet and delivering on the signed contracts.
The software we are currently building lays the foundation for a rapid scaling of autonomous technology, which has the strongest business case for sustainable transport. But it takes several years to fully deploy the trucks, and there is a lot of software that needs to be built,” says Tomas Ohlson.
About Einride
Einride is a Swedish transport and technology company. The company was founded in 2016 and became the first in the world to operate an electric and autonomous truck on public roads in Sweden in 2019. In 2022, Einride became the first company to receive approval to operate autonomous vehicles on public roads in the USA.
On 19 December, Tomas Ohlson spoke at our TechMeetUp for tech companies. He shared Einride's journey, the development of the transportation market, and insights into the future of sustainable, electrified, and autonomous transport.
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