Fernride

Fernride specializes in optimizing yards with autonomous, electric trucking solutions designed for container transportation, manufacturing supply, and yard shunting. The company extends its autonomous transport capabilities to open roads, utilizing a human-assisted autonomy approach that allows one operator to oversee multiple driverless vehicles simultaneously. Fernride combines autonomous driving technology for routine tasks with remote operation to ensure added reliability and adheres to the highest EU safety standards. Their solutions enable emission-free yard operations, helping clients meet ESG goals. Fernride raised $50M in Series A funding to scale its autonomous yard trucking operations and collaborates with HHLA TK Estonia and DB Schenker for international expansion and pilot projects. The company employs over 130 people and uses an advanced autonomy stack, redundant systems, fail-safe mechanisms, and state-of-the-art sensors in their vehicles. Fernride offers a centralized platform for managing autonomous fleets through its Management Suite and focuses on safety with rigorous performance testing and risk assessment, delivering 99.9% operational reliability. Their technology automates yard shunting to increase yard capacity and reduce operational costs, automates the movement of swap bodies and trailers to mitigate risks in manual handling, and improves loading and unloading processes. Fernride collaborates with Volkswagen Group Logistics for manufacturing supply chain automation and participates in the ATLAS-L4 project to bring autonomous level 4 trucks on the road. Their solutions integrate into existing terminal environments without requiring infrastructure changes and adhere to stringent safety protocols with collision avoidance and trained operator assistance. Fernride has productive operations across all yard-trucking use cases with DB Schenker, HHLA, and Volkswagen. The company has raised more than $60M in venture funding and spun off from the Chair of Automotive Engineering at TUM after 10 years of research. Fernride won the German Mobility Award in 2020 and achieved the first productive operations of automated trucks at Volkswagen Wolfsburg in 2022.