Hendrik Kramer and his team at Fernride want to tackle the driver shortage with autonomous electric trucking. Krone Commercial Vehicle Group supports the start-up as an investor and is working with Fernride on various innovative technology projects. Dr Stefan Binnewies, the Krone Holding Executive Board member responsible for the Krone Holding's commercial vehicle division, visited Hendrik Kramer on the company's test track in Munich.

Dr Stefan Binnewies: Dear Hendrik, you have been working on autonomous electric trucking solutions at Fernride for five years and we at the Krone Commercial Vehicle Group are proud to be a partner at your side. The fact that you are doing good work is recognised: Volkswagen and DB Schenker have also invested in you and you have been voted one of the “30 under 30” in the “Manufacturing and Industry” category, by business magazine Forbes. What motivates you personally on this journey?

Hendrik Kramer: I want to build a globally relevant tech company here from Europe that solves real problems. We need to deal with issues in logistics such as driver shortages and electrification to ensure resilient supply chains and maintain everyday life in our democracies. And we can do that now. I find entrepreneurship so exciting because you can make an impact. You can change the world – and that’s my goal. Of course, you have to proceed step by step. We have all the expertise in Europe to start this transformation: from manual to autonomous, diesel to electric, using strong partners and not just leaving it to the Chinese or Americans. It’s a great privilege to work with so many exiting people, while learning directly from them.

Please tell us again how it came about and what exactly you do!

Fernride is a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich. After ten years of research into automated driving, the technology was so mature that we wanted to launch it on the market, but initially we didn’t know which market and which business model to use. During numerous discussions with experts and participants from different markets, we realised the many challenges and huge potential in logistics.

Other start-ups also want to exploit this potential. How do you go about it?

Others are focussing directly on the most difficult case: public roads. We have decided to take a more pragmatic approach and start where autonomous driving already works today: in distribution centres, on factory premises or in ports, i.e. on private property where there is no need to change legislation and where people drive at a maximum speed of 30 kilometres per hour. We want to scale up this first use case in the harbour and become the global market leader. Then we will decide on the next steps. What we want to offer is not a technology, but a solution that ultimately benefits the customer. And this must be holistic, taking the entire system into account. For us, having the trucks drive autonomously means that people assist the technology: We don’t take them completely out of the equation, but place them in an office from which they are responsible for several highly automated lorries – today there are four vehicles. This increases productivity and safety and makes the job more attractive. We are now continuing to work on making the system scalable. The next milestone is to remove the safety driver from the vehicle in the next six months. Certain safety aspects, standards and regulations must be observed. That’s quite a long list, but it will enable us to fulfil the requirements of the Machinery Directive. The next step is CE labelling. After that, we can continue to optimise and scale up. We are currently investing heavily in our supply chain in order to be able to put not 20 lorries into operation, but rather hundreds, thousands.

Why did you decide to approach Krone?

If we want to remove the driver, we have to look at the entire logistics process.The driver doesn’t just steer, his tasks also include coupling and uncoupling, he has to open and close the doors, release the brakes and take care of securing the load. These secondary activities also need to be covered, so it makes sense to work with a trailer manufacturer. I come from Emsland myself, so it was clear that I would knock on Krone’s door. Fortunately, you were very open to talking about innovation and we have found great partners in your organization, with whom we have now been working together for a long time in a spirit of trust. How do you actually cultivate this openness within the company?

Of course, we can see that the world is changing. And everyone is talking about the need to increase the productivity of transport logistics on the road, but hardly anything has happened in recent decades. Now the changes brought about by digitalisation, automation and electrification are pressing and we need higher productivity, if only because there are fewer and fewer drivers. At the same time, road transport cannot be replaced and will continue to grow. For us, this is an opportunity to make our product more valuable and functional for the customer. We had just redefined our strategy for this when you approached us. It quickly became clear that we wanted to work with you, not least because we share the same entrepreneurial values. This also includes potential friction: I really appreciate the fact that we simply speak directly when things get stuck somewhere and we can resolve issues quickly.

Yes, I feel the same way. It allows us to make rapid progress.

For me, further development always means that people work together without knowing the exact solution beforehand. No matter how great the concept is: If people can’t work together, it becomes difficult.

I see it the same way. It’s about shared values, while at the same time you can be very diverse. That’s how we live it at Fernride: our 150 employees have 40 nationalities and come from all age groups. We need young, dynamic energy as well as industrialisation expertise. Experienced engineers ensure that we do not repeat mistakes that are avoidable.

Speaking of avoiding mistakes, as a start-up, it goes without saying that you are breaking new ground. How do you decide which direction to take?

I think the most important thing is always to draw the right conclusions quickly from your findings. If you try to be very good at everything as a start-up, you can only fail. I always want to have a strong focus. Because wherever we remove complexity, we can become faster. That way, we can add more cases in the future and again build up more complexity. The decisions that are necessary for this can’t be made in a PowerPoint presentation or in a meeting room, but by trying things out and making mistakes. I think we at Fernride are very good at drawing the right conclusions – also together with the customer: You also have to be quick with them as a team.

While the trailer was previously seen primarily as a simple shell for goods, we breathe life into it. For example, we ensure that it can couple automatically and that this work step can be carried out without a driver. So we give the trailer arms – and it gets legs through our cooperation with Trailer Dynamics, where it is equipped with an electric axle and even supports the tractor unit. When do you think your technology will make it onto the road?

I think we will decide in the next two years when we want to start using it on the road. The alternative, for example, is to begin with other applications on private property; we have already implemented successful projects with Volkswagen and DB Schenker, for example. And for this medium-term decision, we are of course already holding talks with potential partners. After all, our current trucks are optimised for the container yard in the port. If you go onto public roads, that means higher speeds and other vehicle types and therefore other vehicle manufacturers.

Personally, I believe that automated driving will gradually move out of these limited areas of application such as harbours. And that will happen faster than we all think. I come from the intralogistics sector, and 15 years ago we didn’t think that driverless transport systems would become so established. In our new spare parts warehouse, these carriers now operate as a standard feature.

Yes, for our major logistics customers, automated processes in the warehouse are now absolutely standard, just as they are in the harbour. For them, it’s actually the next logical step to use mobile robots in horizontal transport as well. With regard to drivers, I would also like to say that making autonomous driving possible is not our priority. Our focus is on the imminent shortage of two million drivers in Europe by 2026. This is a huge issue for our society. And if we do not find a solution soon, the empty supermarket shelves we know from the pandemic will become the new normal. We need to make the drivers we have more productive, train new talent and make the job more attractive. At Fernride, we are doing all of this at the same time by creating the new job of teleoperator. As a teleoperator, you manage a fleet of autonomous vehicles from an office, so you don’t have to travel as much, you don’t have to sleep in the lorry and you can earn more money in the long term. The job is also safer: accidents happen in container terminals, where everything has to happen quickly and masses of metal are moved.

That’s a big step forward compared to the status quo. I think that accidents at work don’t happen at the interfaces to automation, but where work is still done manually. People always look for the best way – the most efficient, the most convenient for them. Our customers don’t always use our products the way they should according to the safety regulations.

This is only human.

Yes, definitely. What I would also like to say: As a partner, we were also very pleased about your nomination for Forbes’ “30 under 30”, because this helps to promote a positive perception of logistics in society and thus give it a higher profile. As the Krone Commercial Vehicle Group, we also want to contribute to this and create an understanding that smooth logistics is a competitive advantage. In terms of logistics costs as a percentage of gross domestic product, Europe has an advantage of several percentage points over other developing countries. We are therefore not only able to build the best machines, but are also the best at bringing them to the markets in the logistics process and are in control of our supply chain. We need to understand and utilise this competitive advantage more as a business model. And work together to ensure that logistics also has a better social standing in Europe. Nobody yet knows exactly what the future of autonomous truck driving will look like. But here too, one of our tasks is to give our customers an idea, to show them what is already technically possible and what is yet to come. Now is exactly the right time to develop this from a safe harbour – in the truest sense of the word.

We see it exactly the same way. For me, the award is above all a nice recognition of our work as a team at Fernride. The attention we have received at a global level has certainly helped us as a new brand in terms of customers, investors and talent. Especially because we are competing with high-tech companies in the labour market. The nomination helps to create trust and I am grateful for that. It was nice that the local newspaper in my home town reported on it, which made my mum very proud – it also gave her a better understanding of what we’ve been working on here in Munich all this time.