Einride and Nvidia are collaborating on autonomous electric trucks
The Swedish logistics technology company Einride is expanding its partnership with the American AI firm Nvidia. As part of this, Einride plans to further develop its autonomous electric truck solution using Nvidia Hyperion’s platform.
Einride’s Autonomous Electric Truck (Archived Image)
Image: Einride
Basically, there has been cooperation between Nvidia and Einride since late 2020: At that time, the Swedes announced they intended to use Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin computing platform for the next generation of their autonomous electric trucks. Einride wanted to leverage the Orin SoC for onboard computing power, so that the prototype known as the “Pod” could evolve from its current use in restricted areas to autonomous driving on roads and highways.
But at that time it was essentially about a particularly powerful onboard computer—these are extremely important for real-time driving decisions in autonomous driving—so Einride now aims to use Nvidia’s technology as a complete reference architecture for Level 4 autonomy. The selected platform, Nvidia Hyperion, includes not only computing hardware but also a Level 4-ready combination of computing power, sensors, and software/safety architecture. Nvidia has already established this strategy with other automotive partners as well.
Einride is taking the lead in development
Einride emphasizes that it remains at the forefront in developing its autonomous driving technology called Einride Driver: Einride designs, builds, and operates the entire autonomous driving system from start to finish, including safety validation, regulatory approval, and customer deployments as specified in contracts, while Nvidia provides the underlying computing platform and AI development tools that support the system.
"We have the customers, operational experience, and technology. Developing the next generation of Einride Driver on the Nvidia Hyperion platform will enable us to expand autonomous operations within a freight network that already serves customers today," said Henrik Green, Chief Technology Officer at Einride.
"Autonomous truck driving represents one of the most clear-cut ways to improve safety and efficiency in global freight transportation," said Rishi Dhall, Nvidia’s vice president of Automotive. "By building on Nvidia Hyperion with the Nvidia Halos safety system and leveraging the Nvidia Cosmos and Blackwell infrastructure, Einride can accelerate the development and validation of its autonomous driving technology and expand its deployment across its growing freight network."
Transition from manned to autonomous electric trucks
According to Einride, it currently operates hundreds of electric trucks for large companies in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, including autonomous trucks that are already in use under customer contracts. Based on current demand from clients on its platform, Einride expects this fleet to grow to 1,500 to 2,000 vehicles by 2028. To achieve this, the company recently ordered 500 Tesla Semi trucks. Einride estimates that about 80 percent of customer demand is suitable for automation in the medium term, and it continues to develop its technology accordingly.
Einride has also developed two autonomous electric trucks on its own, but they have not yet reached mass production. In the past few days, Einride has been testing one of the prototypes together with Lidlin near Kassel. There, the vehicle travels a distance of about 400 meters between a logistics center and a branch office. The trial is intended to be expanded in the future to routes involving multiple branches.
Einride described its two-pronged approach in a recent investor presentation as follows: First, conventional electric trucks and the digital platform Einride Saga AI are intended to build a growing customer base and collect as much real-world operational data as possible. With each additional shipment, the data foundation, utilization rate, and thus the platform’s profitability are expected to increase. Once Einride has identified a specific application area for autonomous operation, the autonomous capacity is planned to be scaled beyond the existing customer base. For Einride’s customers, this means that they will be able to use increasingly automated deliveries at lower costs per shipment on the same platform in the future.