Driverless Trucking Startup Einride May be Planning a $5 Billion US IPO
Back in 2019, the Swedish company became the first company to put a self-driving big rig truck on a public road.
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Truck stops may get really quiet: Autonomous freight company Einride is considering a US listing this year that the Financial Times reports might value the Swedish startup at more than $5 billion.
Einride was the first company to put a self-driving big rig on a public road in 2019. The Swedish company’s biggest market is the US, where it kicked off a partnership with PepsiCo last fall to ship Frito-Lay snacks. Einride’s A-list client roster also includes GE Appliances, Maersk, and Heineken. The company handles routes around the world and is expected to deploy 200 trucks on UAE roads this week.
While robotrucks don’t get as much hype as robotaxis, McKinsey predicts driverless freight may rev up $600 billion in revenue by 2035 as the global shipping industry looks to go green and get a much-needed new labor force.
AI Takes the Wheel
The driverless freight biz leverages AI to learn routes and handle obstacles. A slew of startups is looking to get the edge on the most advanced AI, including driverless truck companies Gatik and Torc, which announced team-ups with Nvidia this week.
The big-rig biz may be less concerned about AI stealing human jobs than other industries. That’s because trucking’s in the midst of a major labor shortage:
- The US needs 80,000 more drivers ASAP, according to the American Trucking Association, and that figure is expected to double in five years.
- Europe currently needs 200,000 more truckers, McKinsey estimates, and that number will rise to 745,000 in three years.
Driverless trucks could also handle demanding 24/7 conditions and roads that are hazardous to humans. Volvo has sent driverless trucks to mines and quarries, where they have, for instance, carried limestone through dark and narrow tunnels nearly 500 feet underground.
Speed Bumps: AI won’t meet trucking’s labor demand overnight: Driverless trucks can still only operate on designated pre-mapped routes, usually from one hub to another. The industry has to wait for regulators to give their trucks the green light (Europe mostly approves routes on a case-by-case basis, while the US has a patchwork of state-level laws) — not to mention for customers to be less spooked by the sight of an empty big rig barreling toward them.
