Manufacturing firm SKF is testing a self-driving electric truck in partnership with tech company Einride to transport goods on a public road.
The trial, which will see trucks travel between a factory and a warehouse in Gothenburg, Sweden, aims to build on previous projects where the firm has driven electric, self-driving truck on public roads for commercial purposes in 2018.
SKF uses Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) inside factories and warehouses already and also has advanced plans to develop a solution for autonomous loading and unloading of the autonomous truck, which can carry up to ten tonnes at a time.
The new trial on public roads will require a special permit from the Swedish Transport Agency, which the two companies in the trial plan to apply for together.
Mattias Axelsson, global logistics manager at SKF, said: “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
Jonas Hernlund, commercial manager at Einride, said: “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.”
