AWARD YEAR
2019
CATEGORY
Community
GOALS
Sustainable Cities & Communities
KEYWORDS
Autonomous Vehicles, logistics, electric vehicle
COUNTRY
United Kingdom
DESIGNED BY
Einride
WEBSITE
https://www.einride.eu/en
T-POD
A driverless Electric Pod to be the Delivery Guy Of The Future
Inside a new type of truck, there are no seats and no windows. The vehicle—which founders call a “T-pod”—is the first truck to be designed to never have a human inside. The driverless design makes it possible, the startup says, to run fully on electric power in a way that can compete with diesel semis on the road today.
Without windows or a separate cab, the truck looks essentially like an aerodynamic white box with wheels.
Since a truck hauling 20 tons of freight needs a lot of energy to move, it has to stop fairly frequently to charge; the T-pod can make it 124 miles before it has to plug in again. For other electric semis, charging time is a bigger deterrent, because it’s also wasting a driver’s time.