---
title: "Einride T-Pod Self-Driving Truck Doesn’t Even Have a Seat for a Driver"
description: "This Swedish autonomous truck is a windowless box on wheels."
date: "2017-07-06"
modified: "2017-07-06"
authors:
  - name: "Stephen Edelstein"
    job_title: "Weekend Editor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/stephen-edelstein"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/tech/12180/einride-t-pod-self-driving-truck-doesnt-even-have-a-seat-for-a-driver"
categories:
  - "Car Tech"
  - "News"
  - "Self-Driving Tech"
  - "Trucks"
tags:
  - "autonomous trucks"
  - "Electric Trucks"
  - "self-driving trucks"
  - "sweden"
  - "Tech"
---

# Einride T-Pod Self-Driving Truck Doesn’t Even Have a Seat for a Driver

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/2017/07/tpod_material10.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

The next big thing in autonomous driving might very well be self-driving trucks. [Uber continues to test autonomous trucks](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/12107/uber-upgrades-its-fleet-of-autonomous-trucks>), and [Waymo has expressed interest](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/11071/waymo-is-exploring-self-driving-trucks-to-rival-uber>) in them as well. But a Swedish start-up called [Einride](<https://news.einride.eu/meet-the-t-pod/>) hopes to take things a bit further: It recently unveiled the T-Pod, an electric truck that can not only drive itself, but makes no provisions at all for an onboard human driver.

The T-Pod is about 23 feet long and weighs 20 tons fully loaded, with a cargo box big enough to accommodate 15 standard pallets, according to Einride. It's basically a box on wheels, with no windows or manual controls. The battery pack is a massive 200-kilowatt-hour unit, providing enough juice for 124 miles of driving per charge, the company estimates.

While the T-Pod won't have any people onboard, it won't be entirely autonomous either. The truck will drive itself on highways, but on city streets or in other complex environments, a human will operate it remotely. (An out-of-control autonomous truck rampaging through an urban area probably wouldn't make for very good press.)

Einride wants to deliver the first completed truck to a customer this fall, according to [*Engadget*](<https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/05/einride-self-driving-truck-giant-freezer-wheels/>). By 2020, it plans to have 200 trucks traveling a set route between the Swedish cities of Gothenburg and Helsingborg, carrying up to 2 million pallets of cargo per year.

Like other transportation startups, Einride faces significant challenges. It needs to develop the capital and expertise to manufacture vehicles on a large scale, something that isn't as easy as many entrepreneurs believe. The T-Pod could also face pushback from regulators; it's hard to see government officials easily accepting a 20-ton autonomous vehicle driving around with no human minder onboard, and with good reason. Self-driving vehicles represent a new and untested technology, but Einride is asking road users to put a lot of faith in it right off the bat.

Self-driving commercial trucks could also face more pushback [over potential job losses](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/11073/heres-why-intel-thinks-self-driving-cars-will-be-a-7-trillion-business>) than self-driving cars. Truckers probably won't take the prospect of being replaced by machines lying down, and t[he connection between job numbers and votes](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/10557/self-driving-cars-could-steal-300000-american-jobs-a-year-goldman-sachs-says>) could lead to resistance from lawmakers as well. Still, with companies large and small developing the technology, it seems likely self-driving trucks will hit the road *en masse* eventually.

## Author
Stephen has always been passionate about cars, and managed to turn that passion into a career as a freelance automotive journalist. When he's not handling weekend coverage for The Drive, you can find him looking for a new book to read.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/SAEdelstein>)