German trucking company FERNRIDE announced today that it has lifted it $31 million in Series A funding.
FERNRIDE has developed a leading platform for autonomous electric trucking. A step on the road toward progressive autonomy, remote starts allow drivers – teleoperators – to take full control of electric trucks without actually sitting in them.
The company was founded by Hendrik Kramer, Maximilian Visser and Jan-Michael Georg, and currently employs more than 100 employees in offices located in Munich and Wolfsburg.
Clients include Volkswagen, DB Schenker, BSH and HHLA, which operates more than 1,000 yards of trucks in Europe alone.
Yard trucks operate on special sites, moving goods from point A to point B, such as moving containers between two on-site halls 1 to 2 kilometers apart 100 times a day.
I spoke to Hendrik Kramer, CEO and co-founder of FERNRIDE, to find out all about it.
Why remote controlled trucks?
Although trucks transport 75% of Europe’s goods by volume and 85% of perishable, high-value goods and medical goods, such as vaccines and food, the region (like the rest of the world) faces a severe shortage of drivers, as those who work are aging. About the profession.
The current shortage of 400,000 truck drivers in Europe alone is expected to rise to 2 million by 2026. Self-driving trucking is expensive, difficult, and difficult to scale.
In remote operations, an operator can remotely operate or drive four trucks simultaneously, manage the fleet and handle difficult cases when the autonomous system needs assistance.
Calculation time for self-driving trucking
Although companies like GATIC and Waymo is deploying self-driving trucks in medium-mileage delivery operations (such as small fulfillment centers, pharmacies, smaller warehouses, and other local pickup points. Overall, the industry has faced significant challenges in its efforts to roll out self-driving delivery trucks).
TuSimple It is restructuring and Dispense about 30% of its global workforce.
Embark has been sold to simulation and software provider Applied Intuition after cutting 70% of its workforce.
Well, to say the least NicolaMaybe that was better.
Kramer stresses that although startups blame regulators for the delay,
“The problem is that the technology is not ready. The framework exists, but no one can launch it.
When it comes to trucking, you’re moving 40-ton trucks at high speeds, and you need to actually predict the future 10 to 20 seconds ahead of time with every dynamic object on that road. This is a difficult problem to solve.
But it will come in the next two years. So the launch timing is now on the respective sites.”
FERNRIDE views its approach as incremental.
“We want to lead this transformation but make it as seamless as possible for our customers,” Kramer explains.
“Investors, customers and employees love that we can launch something every now and then and then expand dramatically every year.
“We don’t think going straight to the open road is the best go-to-market strategy. But we wanted to start now with a use case that we can deploy today in distribution centers and large industrial sites.
This results in thousands of trucks being deployed and dozens of enterprise customers providing data to win the data and trust of regulatory agencies to move to the next step. “This means starting work now, not waiting years.”
Move slowly, win things
Kramer emphasizes that not being first has its advantages:
“Sometimes it’s also good to come a little late to the party,” says Kramer. “We provide professional training for remote operators. We have playbooks to drive this transformation and successfully integrate it with your IT infrastructure and customer operations. We have partnered with many Vehicle manufacturers on the hardware side.”
The company combines a decade of research and experience in the autonomous vehicle and automotive sectors, having recruited senior management team members from BMW, MAN, Mobileye and Argo.AI.
“We can now build on ten years of R&D, advances in hardware, and manufacturing partners and then provide a comprehensive solution.”
FERNRIDE is funded by venture capital firms 10x Founders, Promus Ventures, Fly Ventures, Speedinvest and Push Ventures, along with corporate investors such as HHLA Next and DB Schenker via Schenker Ventures and Krone.
The latest funding will be used to expand FERNRIDE’s operations with existing and new customers globally and advance its technological development.
