SKF to test electric and autonomous goods transport 18 March 2021

Tech company Einride and bearings manufacturer SKF is now testing a self-driving electric truck to transport goods on a public road between the factory and the warehouse in Gothenburg, Sweden.

SKF says that, for it, autonomous vehicles are not new. It already uses self-driving trucks, known as Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV), inside factories and warehouses. There are also advanced plans to develop a solution for autonomous loading and unloading of the autonomous truck, which has a 10t capacity. However, driving driverless vehicles on public roads requires a special permit from the Swedish Transport Agency, which the two companies plan to apply for together.

"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. It claims to have been the first company to have driven electric autonomous vehicles on public roads, in 2018.

SKF is reducing its CO2 impact by 40% from freight transport over a ten-year period until 2025. Mattias Axelsson, global logistics manager at SKF, said: “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."

Author
Transport Engineer

Related Companies
SKF (UK) Ltd

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