SKF and Einride Test Self-driving Electric Trucks to Transport Goods

SKF and Einride perform tests on self-driving electric trucks to transport goods from the factory to the warehouse on a public road.

FREMONT, CA: In 2018, Einride became the first company to drive electric, self-driving trucks on public roads for commercial purposes. "We have decided to reduce our CO2 impact by 40 percent from freight transport over a ten-year period until 2025. We therefore review our entire logistics flow from a CO2 perspective. This is an example of initiatives that give us new opportunities to create efficient, sustainable and autonomous logistics flows that contribute to our goals", says Mattias Axelsson, Global Logistics Manager at SKF.

Autonomous cars are not new for SKF. Nowadays, the self-driven trucks used are known as Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV), inside factories and warehouses. There are also innovative plans to create an autonomous loading and unloading solution for the autonomous truck that can transport up to ten tonnes at a time. Driving autonomous vehicles on public roads involves a special permit from the Swedish Transport Agency, which the two companies intend to apply for jointly.

"With the partnership with SKF, we now have customers in all our priority customer segments: trade, consumer goods and industrial goods, which we are very proud of. Together with them, we will learn and grow quickly," says Jonas Hernlund, Commercial Manager at Einride.

Einride is a Swedish transport tech firm that creates and provides freight solutions based on electric and self-driving vehicles. Established in 2016, the organization was the first to drive electric, self-driving trucks on public roads for commercial purposes.

SKF's objective is to be the undisputed leader in the bearings business. It is accomplished by providing solutions that decrease friction and CO2 emissions while also improving machine uptime and performance. Bearings, seals, lubrication management, artificial intelligence, and wireless condition monitoring are some of the products and services they provide for rotating shafts. SKF is present in over 130 countries and has approximately 17,000 distributor sites around the world.