SXSW Startups: Einride
The Forrest Four-Cast: March 3, 2019
Fifty diverse startups will aim to impress a panel of judges and a live audience with their skills, creativity and innovation at SXSW Pitch Presented by Cyndx. Winners in 10 categories will be announced at the Pitch Award Ceremony at 6:30 pm Sunday, March 10, at the Hilton Austin.
A finalist in Transportation and Delivery, which will pitch at 9:30 am Saturday, March 9, Einride is making the movement of goods more intelligent, emission-free, safe, cost-effective, and ultimately, sustainable, by challenging conventional thinking, utilizing big data and cutting-edge technology and inspiring people to take responsibility for the planet and each other.
Einride offers a full stack transport-as-a-service solution, based on autonomous, all-electric trucks, including self-drive and remote-drive systems, an intelligent fleet management system — optimizing efficiency, cost, delivery time, energy consumption and battery longevity — and a new standard platform for freight order management: digitalized, automated and future proof, allowing for a smooth transition from conventional to autonomous and electric transport.
They believe if you want to change road freight for the better, you need to take the holistic approach.
Robert Falck, CEO and founder of Einride, answered some questions about the company.
What are your top goals for Einride in 2019?
Win SXSW. Scare the OEMs into going electric.
Einride is currently based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Tell us about the startup ecosystem there.
If Stockholm is Europe’s Silicon Valley, Gothenburg is Sweden’s Detroit. It’s a Spotify versus Volvo situation. We have offices in both cities, with roughly half of the team in each. So, we’re the down-to-earth guys in Stockholm and the dangerous radicals in Gothenburg. Both cities have excellent technical universities and we benefit a lot from that.
What transformation of the transportation industry does Einride stand for?
The short answer: A sustainable transformation thru electrification, enabled by self-driving.
The slightly longer answer: The road freight industry is responsible for more than 5 percent of global CO2 emissions, it is one of the main sources of NOx emissions, it is inefficient, and it is capacity constrained (50,000 drivers short in the U.S. alone). Additionally, the current model forces drivers to spend long hours behind the wheel, causing fatigue, increasing the risk of accidents. In response to these problems, Einride develops a complete road freight solution, with the potential to make road freight transport safer and more efficient, to eliminate tailpipe NOx emissions and to reduce CO2 emissions very substantially.
In this autonomous vehicles space there is still a high amount of consumer doubt. Do you have a strategy to build user confidence?
The industry needs to prove that autonomous vehicles are safe, and that we put safety first. I think that must be collaborative effort. The number of road traffic fatalities has not improved in a long time, but self-driving technology has the very real potential to make traffic much safer. So, it would be a shame if one or two irresponsible companies ruin that future for the rest of us.
Congratulations on making it into Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge top 10 startups. What did that mean to your company?
The Extreme Tech Challenge rewards “extreme tech,” and in a sense, of course, Einride’s solution is “extreme” in that relies on sophisticated technology. In another sense, however, it’s conventional, diesel-based solutions that are extreme: harmful to the environment and to people’s health. We desperately need a “new normal” in transport, and we believe it must be based on all-electric vehicles.
Einride established recently a partnership with Ericsson and Telia, the leading telephone company in the Baltic region. Tell us more about the network installation this collaboration involves.
Ericsson and Telia provide high-performance connectivity for Einride’s installations. Robust, low-latency connectivity is vital for the early introduction of autonomous vehicles, as it enables remote supervision and — when appropriate — remote-control.
If your team members weren’t involved in building Einride, what would they be doing?
Many of my colleagues are defectors from the automotive industry, like me. What I think is true for all of us is that we want to make a difference, change things for the better. And we’re prepared to accept some personal risk for what we believe in.
Looking at the entire tech industry, what trend is your team most excited about?
More and more people going after the big problems. The work being done right now will make the 2020s the most exciting decade yet.
Looking at the entire tech industry, what technology would you call the Myspace of 2019…in other words, something we won’t be thinking so much about in 2020 and beyond?
Diesel engines.
What has the startup experience taught you about life?
To enjoy every scar.
What’s one piece of advice you wish you’d had that you’d give to others wanting to join the startup journey?
But why would you? A startup is just a means to an end. You should be looking for a purpose.
Look for more interviews with other SXSW Pitch finalists in this space between now and March.
Click here to see all 50 finalists for SXSW Pitch 2019, along with the links to their interviews on Medium.
Also, if you are an entrepreneur, check out all the cool panels and presentations in the Entrepreneurship and Startups Track, which runs March 8–12 at SXSW.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
