Einride, a startup based in Sweden, has this week released a full-scale prototype of its T-pod.
The T-pod is an all-electric truck that can be operated by remote.
Please consider Einride’s Full Prototype T-Tod.
The T-pod is a driverless, fully electric truck with a range of 200km and is designed to replace smaller medium-duty trucks on short trips.
But where the Einride T-pod differs from other autonomous electric trucks is that it can be driven by remote control. The deal is that the T-pods will travel autonomously on highways, then when they enter cities and towns, a ‘driver’ will take over by remote control and guide the T-pod to its final destination. Obviously, the T-pods are monitored when traveling autonomously and the driver can take over should the need arise.
The T-pods are seven metres long and because they have no cabin, and not even any seats, they can carry up to 15 pallets and have a total weight of 20 tonnes.
The company’s goal is to have a fleet of 200 T-pods running in Sweden by 2020, with plans to test its first route between the Swedish cities of Gothenburg and Helsingborg late this year.
Einride plans to test its first fleet in 2018 and the founders say that although current laws haven’t been tested for self-driving vehicles, there is nothing technically illegal about using the trucks on Swedish roads. Sweden has also proposed progressive legislation to allow testing of self-driving vehicles, and though the law may not be in place by this summer, companies can apply for permission to start testing early.
The company says it will have to build a network of charging stations for longer journeys but the T-Pods could dock and charge themselves during a trip.
Einride maintains that once in full operation, the T-pod network made up of these driverless trucks will have the capacity to move up to 2,000,000 pallets of goods per year. Einride claims that they may grow the route network across Sweden faster if the trucks work well.
Meet the Einride T-Pod
Can this Concept Work?
Why not?
A huge cost in trucking is the cost of a driver and benefits. In addition, regulations require a certain amount of driver down time for safety reasons. Drivers have to sleep.
If the benefit in electric trucks is greater than the cost of the driver and fuel, electric trucks are a given.
With non-commercial cars, the limiting factor is driver down time and range. The cost of the driver and benefits do not come into play.
With cars, the primary problem over long distances is charging time that is very difficult to schedule, especially with no fast charging stations that can easily be put in place for trucks.
I expect we will see widespread adoption of the electric trucks before cars, especially in the US.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I don’t think the remote control monitors and drivers will work for free with no benefits, so that part of the cost savings won’t be 100% less that a truck with a driver. The other factors, such as no need for rest time and increased cargo space may offset this to some degree.
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It won’t be free, but it will cost less.
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I envision a person in say, a room in Las Vegas, that is in control of 100 trucks at a time. Sort of like the AF Drone program. That person would also command a quick response team for repairs or what not (which also could be comprised of robots). Another idea – two large drones flying containers along the interstate routes at say 100 feet. This would definitely work between Sac and SLC.
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Exactly how are they going to devise batteries with the energy storage density needed to move heavy loads when battery technology is just barely adequate for personal transportation in small, lightweight sedans or sports cars?
A Tesla ain’t a truck.
Even pickup trucks, which are perhaps the smallest trucks that are used for transport of heavy material, are not all-electric at the moment because battery tech is not good enough right now.
Electricity is not magic, the energy stored in those batteries must be generated by some power source.
If it’s a hydrocarbon source, then it is almost certainly more efficient to burn it in the vehicle than to lose lots of energy in transporting and storing those electrons in heavy batteries that weigh more than the fuel needed to charge them.
Who will load and unload these trucks when they arrive at their destination? Right now it takes perhaps 15 to 20 minutes for a driver to unload a semi tractor-trailer truck, at a rate of about a pallet per minute.
What happens when a pallet tips over, or something breaks?
Trucks typically pick up empty pallets and take them back to the warehouse when they make short runs. Otherwise, the empty pallets pile up at the store. Who puts those back on the truck? What if there is snow or ice on them?
There are dozens of things that humans do that robots can’t do right now. It’s not impossible to automate all of those tasks also, but it’s naive to think that these problems will solve themselves. It might require a redesign of every loading dock to allow a robotic truck to operate at every destination that is currently served by human truckers. Even getting the doors open and the docking plate to lock into position requires human hands and arms, and often a bit of elbow grease and profuse profanity.
Will the investment in the new tech be recovered quickly enough for a retail CEO to make his annual bonus? If not, it won’t happen in real life.
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The pallet thing is easily solved by having someone at the destination handle it.
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“Will the investment in the new tech be recovered quickly enough for a retail CEO to make his annual bonus?”
An AI CEO won’t need a bonus, or the 145 million dollar salary Tim Cook recently got.
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this appears to be a level 5 machine planned for beta testing in 2020. level 4 beta testing is happening all over the world now. This roughly is what Mish has been forecasting for a couple of years.
Naysayers – join in, I brought my popcorn
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Hi Mish,
As Bryant said above, the ‘remote control’ bit is exactly what happens in a couple of Australian mines of which I have direct experience (but with specially converted conventional diesel trucks), aiming to reduce the heavy overhead of 4 shifts of unionised drivers each costing $150k+ p.a. in wages, plus employer oncosts like 10% compulsory superannuation, 4 weeks annual long service leave, sick leave, etc. etc. However, to remotely control such a vehicle needs 100% reliable high bandwidth wireless communications between each vehicle and the control centre, so that the actual ‘drivers’ (who also need to be paid, with oncosts, etc. and housed in a high-tech building) can see what the truck is doing, and where it is going before they can control it. And this is expensive – one mining company here (Rio Tinto) has a fleet of maybe 100 ‘automated’ trucks running on dedicated haul roads within each mine, and a control centre in Perth WA with about 400 people, all of which which to date has cost Rio some hundreds of A$millions. In the long term it may well prove to be a good investment, but it will probably take a decade for this investment to break even. A far simpler solution IMO would be to de-unionise the truck drivers, and maybe switch the trucks from running on diesel to LPG to lower fuel costs which often account for up to 40% of open-cut mine operating costs here in Australia. Building special battery-electric trucks and a national network of charging stations just to allow a fleet of driverless to carry 15 pallets of stuff around is not something that I would invest in, but feel free to go ahead!
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I never said I would invest in it either
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I’m in Australia as well. Personally I think the mistake with Rio Tinto was putting the control centre in Perth with 400 employees (high wages, payroll tax, super, benefits, admin etc). Perth is well over 1000 miles from the Pilbara and other mining regions so if you are going to put the control centre that far away then you may as well move it further to somewhere like India or the Philippines and save on the wages. Think of all the telco and banking call centres that are now in low wage countries and then imagine all the trucks being driven remotely by the same method.
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Are you kidding me? Do you really think you can dive a medium duty truck through a city whee the traffic will be variable and the conditions variable and the weather conditions variable, all by remote control? You are living in a fool’s paradise if you think this concept can work. Yes, it can work out on the highways with little traffic, but in urban areas? That is madness.
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Why not? Cameras can see everything a person can. Microphones can hear everything.
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No, cameras are rather poor at indicating depth perception. Second, one would need a variety of cameras to view around the truck. Third, the human eye is very good at detecting motion with peripheral vision and does it in a way that a camera cannot duplicate. All you get is a flat screen, or several, if you like, but it is not the same ans being there. The human ear is more selective than a microphone. Our brains can screen out “noise” that is not helpful even though we hear it. Listening to sound coming from a speaker does not provide directional cues in the real world.
The main problem with your cameras and microphone argument is that you have never driven truck in the city. One can drive a sports car around the city with ease because it is small, doesn’t take up much room on the road, and offers far more complete visual area. Drive a large sedan and the complexity increases because your size is magnified. drive a 26 foot straight truck and suddenly the lanes appear very narrow. Parkways are nice for autos, the lanes are wide. But get into some of the industrial areas and you may find you lane is barely 9 feet wide. Your truck is 8 feet six inches wide. Many industrial sites are accessed though blighted urban housing. There are plenty of skid row bums hanging about. You are subject to being hijacked. And you think cameras and microphones are going to be all you need? It’s not slot car racing.
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At least they understand the local part of the delivery requires a human driver.
The simplest solution is usually the best and that simple solution is to use automated trucks for long interstate stretches but human drivers for local delivery.
Automated drop yards every 500 miles could check the truck’s tires & fluids and allow for refueling with diesel- because that’s the cheapest, most reliable fueling option. An all electric trucking industry is another fantasy not based in any semblance of the real world.
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I agree. Automated long hauls. Humans for last mile. At least to start out until they iron out a lot of details.
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Similar to when intermodal (railroad cars) was integrated. Shorter routes, but picked up at drop yards.
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Freight trains are a proven technology and are multiples cheaper on long haul routes than trucks. Highways were built to run parallel to previously existing tracks; the tracks/interstate go to the same places — you already have underutilized freight yards outside of major cities. And you don’t have to wait for a Swedish truck to show up and display a blue screen of death. Bleeding edge technology isn’t always a good idea.
I don’t see freight trains putting long haul trucks out of business — despite the cost advantage of trains. And I certainly don’t see a Swedish blue screen of death doing so for a higher cost than the trains.
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ONE Question: Where will the money saved on the truck driver go to? Of course you can say that producers will invest in more production (but they won’t — that’s not the trend). Or you could say the money consumers save will be spent on declining consumption, but it will more likely end up bidding up real estate or other assets, that being the trend.
There is a problem here with the flow of money and stuff through the economy and society which nobody seems to be able to analyze well, let alone think about constructively, except with nostrums from a past that has passed.
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Good last mile solution. Driver still involved. Massive savings on reduced maintenance because it’s electric, and increased performance because the driver isn’t spending any time chatting up the hot secretary at the customer’s office. Oh, and the driver can be driving a different vehicle while his last is being unloaded.
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Two innovations come to light here. First, as already commented on, the use of remote control. The second is that with automation and the elimination of the on- board driver, the truck itself will be redesigned.The cab will be eliminated and the need for tractor-trailer combinations decreased if not eliminated.
Trucks will be shorter and lighter. This could have significant positive effects on highway and urban congestion, road safety and road wear and tear.
Also, could be a plus for electric cars because it will drive demand for charging stations.
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I don’t know the exact path that will be taken, but this inevitable. The savings over not having a driver will be immense. Even though you still have to pay someone to control the vehicle for the last mile. No unions to deal with. Much cheaper auto insurance because the driver can’t be medically hurt in an accident.
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Nonsense. You assume a “radio controlled” driver to be less accident prone than a human in the truck. The human driving the truck can be killed and thus has “skin in the game”. The guy driving it like a drone cannot.
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I didn’t say they were less accident prone. I said they can’t be injured. How can a remote driver be killed?
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I can see that this idea might work in Sweden (short distances, planned routes, lots of hydro power). And I certainly believe the future of vehicles is autonomous. I still have my doubts regarding all-electric though. I believe the vast majority of autonomous vehicles will be hybrid ICE/electric. The cost/benefit of hybrid is so much better than all-electric. All-electric will be limited to more specialty applications, as illustrated in this story. The addition of remote control will become the norm in most forms of autonomous transport such as planes, trains, ships and transport trucks.
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Agreed. Plug-in hybrid/ICE makes much more sense given the current battery technology. Especially in the US which has few options for middle distance transportation other than driving.
Currently remote control does have the issue of going into areas with limited radio reception (tunnels come to mind), but those limitations can be overcome with some infrastructure investment.
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With an overpopulated planet and a military empire, wouldn’t it just be more economical to reintroduce chattel slavery for tasks like these. The slaves could be useful for a 15-20 year period at which point they could be sent to rendering facilities to use their biomass in other ways. ..as animal feed or crop fertilizer. The techdick solution sounds interesting…electric this and that gadget…but when it comes to utilitarianism for oligarchs, I find the retro, old-fashioned ways are best.
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That’s what min wage is now, with the benefit the slaves must find their own food, shelter, health care etc with a financial allowance that is obviously too small.
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As others have pointed out, these “driverless” trucks do not mean “employeeless”. These monitor folks will eventually unionize and their costs will be similar to the truck drivers.
The whole push for electric cars/trucks is driven by a false narrative on man made global warming (forget the fact that building electric cars produces more emotions than operating gas/diesel cars). This false state of reality is fading and will evaporate once the government subsidies evaporate, as the People get sick of paying for the false solution to a false problem.
The notion of autonomous driving vehicles is another “the jetsons” pie in the sky. Technology can do many of the operations of a car/truck, but even this article points out that it can not do all of the operations. There are applications where it could work, but these are far from universal.
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I suspect zero additional people will monitor trucks (truck are already being monitored)
In this case, we are talking about the last mile, not highway driving
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The idea of having a cheap system to handle long distance shipping, and then a human driver to handle the “last mile” is hardly new or innovative. We have these things called “freight trains” in the USA, that haul hundreds and sometimes thousands of containers on a single platform. The containers get offloaded to truck beds for the “last mile”.
Container systems that can move from ship to train to truck have been in place for at least two decades (everywhere in North America), and in higher traffic areas for longer than that.
Transporting by ship is dirt cheap. Transporting by rail is several magnitudes cheaper than by truck. Semi-automated cranes move the containers in a minute in union ports like LA / Long Wharf; fully automated cranes move the containers even faster in Vancouver, Houston, etc (and in Mexico — can’t remember port name).
Despite the very significant cost advantage — long haul truckers have not been eliminated in favor of freight trains… and the freight train companies are domestic companies with big lobbying groups. Rail road unions are just as loud and powerful in Washington DC as the teamsters. Its also a lot easier to add another car to a freight train than to hire / background check / train a trucker.
Mexican truck drivers are significantly cheaper than their US counterparts, and the 18 wheelers they use for long haul routes are state of the art (not jalopies typically depicted). The Mexican drivers are banned just inside the US border, because its not just about cost — politics play into these business decisions too.
Sweden doesn’t have the freight train infrastructure that North America has. We are also talking a tiny fraction of the volume.
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Yes, we have trains, but there are far more roads than train tracks.
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The train tracks go between every major city in the country — and often run parallel to highways. Trucks handle the “last mile” (its actually the last 20-30 miles), from the train depot to the final destination.
Instead of having a remote control “driver” take the Swedish truck the “last mile” (its actually the last 20-30 miles here too) — a local truck moves the container the last mile in the train situation. Heck, there is no reason the train to truck solution couldn’t use a remote control truck for the second part.
Its EXACTLY the same system — except the train is still going to be much cheaper for the long haul segment.
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How are we are saving manpower. What’s the difference driving the truck or moving it remotely. This is a concept only. We got microwave ovens from radar research so maybe something good may come out of it but I am not holding my breath.
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I don’t know why the trucks would need to be electric….just establish conventional refueling stations along all major highways at regular intervals. Much cheaper, and not subject to battery limitations.
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Roads are for people, that is how it is and should stay. Even if the tech is overall safer, first incident attributable and the whole fleet gets taken off the road because design flaw will be common to all. Really should have own sidelane or track, rail etc.
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We already have trains in North America. For long haul, they are already MUCH lower cost than long haul truckers. Freight trains have extra capacity now, and buying a few more freight engine cars is cheaper than re-engineering roadways.
These techno-trucks are a lovely novelty item, but even without a driver they will cost a lot more than just putting a container on a freight train. The goods are already in containers, and shipping ports already have container handling equipment.
I suspect the economics of trains in Germany, Netherlands and Poland are similar to North America — trucks are not economically competitive even without drivers.
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The problem with Freight trains in the US is they’re monopolies on their lines. Because they don’t compete with other train services, their competition is the long-haul trucking industry. So they price against the more expensive competition instead of each other. And since their margins have been historically high, it leaves a lot of room for railroad unions and executives to jack up labor costs.
In Europe, the lines are usually owned by the government (and the trains themselves). Though in a few instances you get private train companies renting time on the lines from the government. Which is also why it costs $200 to take a train from Madrid to Barcelona and $800 to take one from Orlando to D.C. in the US. Monopolies kill this country.
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Rail rates are still regulated by the federal government, decades after “deregulation”.
Even if your monopoly theory were true (its a monopoly of government regulators), that doesn’t change the underlying cost structure. If these Swedish blue screens of death show up, the rail rates can be reset lower to match or beat them. The old timer rail union members are retiring, so the rail cost structure will decline over time (automation systems effecting trains too) as some (not all) rail workers get replaced.
My point wasn’t about your political theories on monopolies. My point is that lower cost sort-of driverless some of the time trucks isn’t going to be enough to make these things work in most places.
My point is: lower cost solutions already exist.
Lower cost isn’t going to make these blue screens of death viable in the real world, because lower costs already exist — and those alternatives are already lower than what the “magic trucks” are theorized to cost.
Our blog host did not ask why more containers don’t go by rail — despite the massive price advantage even under federal rate regulations. He got caught up in the wiz bang technology, as he often does.
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Agree with what you are saying as it is already my view. Trucks could be only for local distribution. What I was trying to say is roads are for the people using them. People, not objects. There is a legal principle that states that any harm caused to a person is dealt with within the confine of that event, the argument is not allowed to extend to the hypothetical . That is to say, if you place something on a road and people get hurt by it, you get into a lot of trouble, and you get told to never place that object there again. You can argue that it could be better or safer overall, but that argument just does not stand the test as proven by a factual event. Expect proponents to make all sort of excuses, look for all leeway possible. When someone is injured or worse though, drag them in front of the family and let me watch them try to tell them ‘ sorry, but as a whole it is better’. It just does not pass.
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Fun read sorta on topic
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/never-on-a-sunday/
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Electric trucks cannot haul uphill.
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Source?
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Yes they can, Musk is designing one now. Question is, what is the range, and what is the overall power budget/carbon footprint. It will probably scale the same way as small cars. Heavy truck will use about 7 times more diesel than a small car. Weight is about 40-50 times.
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The truck will need larger batteries than a car will. The economics are the same.
Binocular vision only works out to 20 feet or so; as car back-up cameras show, superposing radar depth on the screen works better.
I see two problems: First, as friends who use cell phones and claim they work as a communications device keep proving to me, they do not work under highway conditions; they keep dropping out. You will need much better signal repeaters.
Second, the autopilot realizing that matters are bad and telling the human driver he is now in control is not like the airplane model in one critical respect. Now matter how bad the situation, it takes a while to crash an airplane from cruising altitude. That’s enough time for a pilot to figure out what to do. There are a decent number of recovered audio portions of planes doing CFIG that show the issue. It takes almost no time to crash a car. One way to help this is to make autopilots conservative In their driving choices…do not tailgate. Do not break the speed limit.
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The slogan on Einride’s “press” section of their web page says it all: “This is not a company, it’s a movement.”
The product has nothing to do with practicality or feasibility.
Unless some gullible policy makers force this down everyone’s throats, it will not be the future of over the road shipping. Not even close.
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+1000
Our blog host (and many other commenters) are so enamored with the latest techno gadgetry, they forget that many of these gadgets are not practical in the real world
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Soooner or later it Will work:
If one could operate drones remotely, trucks should be even easier…
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I did not say it would not work. I said it is not *practical*. Big difference.
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Driverless, electric magic trucks might be the greatest techno gadget ever assembled — but that doesn’t mean they will be practical.
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That is perfect. I sometimes wonder if Matt Groening is time traveler.
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One reason I have been leery (perhaps unreasonably) about driverless vehicles is safety as a driver has ‘skin in the game’ – his own life is at stake as well as that of the cargo. A remote driver will not have skin in the game and the technological safety features of driverless cars will be diminished or gone.
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