Meet the T-Pod Truck; an autonomous truck that is currently undergoing testing on a public road in Sweden. It is running along with other traffic while being used for transporting goods around the industrial zone. T-Pod Truck comes from Einride – a Swedish startup.
source/image: einride
Einride’s T-pod has no driver’s cab but is supervised and can be teleoperated by a human operator, from hundreds of miles away. Not having a driver’s cab enables a smaller vehicle, increased loading capacity, greater flexibility, lower production costs, lower operating costs and optimized energy consumption, allowing the T-pod to run solely on batteries.
source/image: einride
Einride is operating the electric Truck on a small length of road in Jönköping, which is considered to be the transport hub located in the heart of Scandinavia.
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The test began on Wednesday last week and is slated to run up until the end of next year. This is the first time that a completely self-driving truck without any backup driver has made its way onto a public road.
A fleet of T-pods can be coordinated by an intelligent routing system, optimizing delivery time, battery life and energy consumption, making road freight transportation as efficient as possible.
Einride T-Pod Specifications:
- ▪ Loading capacity – 15 euro-pallets
- ▪ Range – 200km on one charge
- ▪ Top speed – 85 km/h (electronically limited)
- ▪ Battery capacity – 200 kWh
- ▪ Size – 7 x 2.5m (approximately)
- ▪ Weight – 26 tons fully loaded
