It will be quite a while before fully autonomous cars are on Germany’s roads. The technology seems too uncertain and the regulatory hurdles too great. In the logistics sector, on the other hand, we have come a long way. But even here, autonomous driving does not always work smoothly. Fernride from Munich converts electric trucks to autonomous driving and relies on a mixture of autonomous and so-called tele-driving. If necessary, drivers can take control from a control center.
The pragmatic approach seems to be working – the Munich company has received an investment of around 31 million dollars (equivalent to around 28.7 million euros) in a current round of financing. The money comes mainly from strategic investors such as DB Schenker, the port of Hamburg or the commercial vehicle manufacturer Krone. Traditional VC investors have also participated, such as Speedinvest or 10x Founders.
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The startup is currently focusing on trucks that are on the road on factory premises and transport vehicle parts or containers, for example. Fernride is currently still providing the teledrivers themselves – i.e. those who remotely control the trucks from the headquarters. To show companies how the model can work, says Hendrik Kramer, CEO and founder of the startup. According to him, the startup’s customers want to use their own teledrivers in the future. This would also be more attractive for the startup because it can then concentrate on its software approach.
With the help of the software from Fernride, the teledrivers should be able to monitor and remotely control many vehicles at the same time – very similar to how an air traffic controller looks after many airplanes at the same time. “The rate is currently 1:4,” says Hendrik Kramer about the start-up scene. The goal, however, is for a single driver to be able to remotely control up to 50 trucks at the same time. This is done via a control center that can be set up on the respective company premises.
Factory premises instead of road traffic
The Munich startup has therefore opted for a different approach than its competitor Vay – the second German telefahr startup in Germany: Fernride relies on a B2B business model, i.e. on a few large corporate customers instead of on a driving service that reaches the masses want, like that Berlin company Vay. “We looked at all the applications and finally decided on the logistics area,” says the 28-year-old Kramer.
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There are several reasons for this: Firstly, there is the issue of permits. One of Fernride’s existing corporate customers is Volkswagen. The company premises, on which the trucks with the startup’s software drive around, are privately owned by the car manufacturer. So no official approval is required here to let the autonomous and telecontrolled trucks drive. All Fernride had to do was convince Volkswagen of its product, and then the trucks could start rolling.