EVwire brief: Einride has put four cab-less, autonomous electric trucks to work at Lorenz Snacks' plant in Neunburg vorm Wald, Germany, with the fleet capable of moving up to 1,200 pallets a day.
Each truck carries 15 pallets per trip between Lorenz's production facilities and its central warehouse, with no driver on board and a round trip taking about 30 to 45 minutes. Einride owns and operates the fleet under a five-year transportation service agreement, with the trucks charging on solar power from the plant and replacing Lorenz's diesel vehicles.
Stefan Bender, Lorenz's Head of Logistics Germany, said the trucks are here to stay:
We're not just testing autonomous mobility; we're making it an integral, long-term part of our plant logistics.
Here's Einride's announcement on LinkedIn:
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The trucks run on the Einride Driver, which sees its surroundings through lidar, cameras and radar, with Einride's Saga AI platform coordinating the runs and remote and local operators keeping watch.
Oscar Elm, Einride's Project Manager EMEA for autonomous technology, shared how hard the fleet is already working:
Together, we are now operating a commercial fleet of 4 autonomous trucks on a 24/6 schedule—moving up to 1,200 pallets per day, powered by Einride's Saga AI platform.
The setup, dubbed "PATHFINDER," also earned Lorenz, the maker of Crunchips, a third-place finish at the 2026 German Logistics Awards in October.
Jonas Hermann, who led the deal for Einride's commercial team, said the project gives Einride a template to take to other German sites:
Germany has had a law for autonomous driving since 2021. What was missing was a blueprint to actually operate under it. Working closely with the KBA and TÜV SÜD, we now have one, and we will take it to other sites across Germany. We are ready for scale.
Here are some photos from the event:
By the way, it sure looks to us like you are an EV geek like ourselves.
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Context:
Lorenz isn't the first German company to put Einride's driverless trucks to work. Lidl got there in September, when it put one of Einride's cab-less trucks into daily service between a warehouse and a nearby store in Edermünde, near Kassel, under the country's first permit of its kind from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA). The two setups differ in one key way, though. Lidl's truck runs on a public road as part of a four-month trial, while Lorenz has signed Einride on for five years to run its trucks on the plant's own grounds.
Einride has been expanding just as quickly outside Germany. Its driverless trucks have gone live in Ohio, where EASE Logistics uses them to move freight between its warehouses in Marysville, and the company is also bringing NVIDIA's Alpamayo reasoning model into the Einride Driver. Its conventional electric fleet is growing alongside, with Einride having ordered 500 Tesla Semis for Amazon and other shippers in the US.
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