Fernride has figured out a way to launch a commercially viable autonomous, electric truck business today. The secret? Not driving on public roads.
Most AV trucking companies are going after the moonshot: Using self-driving freight trucks — typically 18-wheelers — to haul goods over long distances. Startups like Waymo, TuSimple, Kodiak Robotics and Aurora have all had commercial pilot projects and are actively testing on public highways in Texas, Arizona and other southern states. None of them are operating without a human safety operator in the front seat; most are years away from commercialization.
Fernride, a Munich-based startup founded in 2019, is in a different kind of trucks business. It’s focused on the yard trucks used to move trailers and containers around ports, terminals and distribution facilities.
“We wanted to do things completely differently,” said Hendrik Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Fernride. “First, we wanted to focus on the use case that works today, specifically yards or geofenced areas on private sites where we can launch a product now. Then when we have launched that first product and built customer relationships, we can scale to the open roads.”
Fern …
