Germans love beer. They consume more of it than almost any other nation, and now they can get it delivered on all-electric trucks, too.
Swedish startup Einride has set up a fleet of five battery-electric trucks to transport beer between Heineken's brewery in Den Bosch, the Netherlands, and its central warehouse in Duisburg on the other side of the German border — a distance of about 135km.
These Mercedes eActros 300 trucks will transport ten full truckloads a day. The daily range for each vehicle will be around 300 kilometres. Once back at the brewery, the freighters will recharge at fast-charging points provided by Finnish startup Kempower.
The beer belongs to Heineken, the trucks are built by Mercedes, and the chargers are made by Kempower — so why's Einride taking the credit?
Well, you see, this whole offering is like a transport-as-a-service package deal Einride offers customers looking to go green. The biggest value proposition, at least in the startup's eyes, is that the trucks are fitted with an AI-controlled operating system that uses real-time data to optimise routes and minimise energy consumption. The startup also monitors the reduction in emissions and displays all this information on a dashboard.
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While Einride is best known for its autonomous vehicles, these trucks will be driven by humans. Boring, I know. But unfortunately for all the futurists out there, the EU is still a long way off from deploying fully self-driving vehicles on public roads — for that you'll probably have to go to the US or Japan.
To be fair, branching out into electric trucking while it waits for autonomous vehicle legislation to catch up is a pretty smart move by Einride. And it seems to be paying off, too.
The startup has recently acquired some major customers in Europe. Not long ago, Einride signed a deal to put 300 electric trucks on roads throughout Europe for the food company Mars. German grocery chains Kaufland and Rewe also recently started using Einride's transport service.
It's not the first beer transport for Einride either. In parts of Sweden, the Danish brewery Carlsberg has switched its logistics to Einride electric trucks, and in Belgium, Einride trucks are on the road for AB InBev. In the UK, PepsiCo is using Einride's electric trucks as well, to move snacks like Doritos from its Midlands factories.