Cabinless self-driving trucks get the green light

Autonomous freight trucks with no driver’s cabin will be on American roads later this year.

Swedish start-up Einride has received approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to operate its Autonomous Electric Transport (AET) trucks in a breakthrough pilot. The Pod trucks will be monitored by a human Remote Pod Operator.

According to Einride, this will mark the first time a purpose-built autonomous, electric truck without a driver on board has received permission to operate on public U.S. roads.

The Pod truck itself is a remarkable looking vehicle, with no windshield or mirrors on account of there being no front cabin – unnecessary because there is no safety operator on board.

As Robert Falck, CEO and founder of Einride, told TechCrunch while other companies are retrofitting existing trucks to become autonomous Einride is doing the opposite by building a new way to handle autonomous shipping from the ground up.

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