Key points
- Two cab-less, SAE Level 4 electric trucks run scheduled routes between EASE warehouses in Marysville, Ohio, on company property and local public roads.
- A remote operator monitors each truck off-site and can step in if needed.
- In Europe, Einride has operated in Sweden, Norway and Belgium, and in September started a route for Lidl in Germany under a federal permit.
- EU rules already allow approval of driverless trucks on predefined hub-to-hub routes. In the UK, the self-driving law will be fully in force from the second half of 2027.
Einride announced on 6 October that the trucks are “now live” and moving freight daily. Operations started in September and are already producing data on miles driven, loads moved and uptime, which will guide the next phase.
The project was first announced in May as a proof of concept by Einride, EASE Logistics, the Ohio programme DriveOhio and Indiana’s transport department INDOT. It is part of the Truck Automation Corridor Project, an $8.8 million multi-year initiative launched in 2021.
From pilots to daily freight
The trucks are built without a cab. A remote operator monitors each one off-site. It is EASE Logistics’ third autonomous trucking deployment with DriveOhio.
“Deployments like this help move autonomous trucking from controlled pilots into daily freight operations,” said Peter Coratola, Jr., president and CEO of EASE Logistics, when the project was announced.
Henrik Green, Einride’s chief technology officer, said: “Daily operations in Marysville give us the proof points we need to keep expanding autonomous freight.”
The route is short and runs between warehouses of one company. Einride has not published the distance or speeds. But the key change is that the trucks are no longer a test: they do regular work on public roads.
Europe: Germany already allows it
Einride’s history started in Europe. In 2019, its cab-less truck began operating on a public road in Jönköping, Sweden, for DB Schenker. In September 2025, it drove the first fully autonomous heavy truck on a public road in Belgium, at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, and crossed the border between Sweden and Norway without anyone on board.
The biggest step so far came in September 2026 in Germany. Einride started operating a cab-less truck for Lidl in Edermünde, running between a distribution centre and a store, under a permit from the federal motor transport authority KBA – the first of its kind in Germany. There is no driver or safety operator on board.
Germany was the first country to create a legal framework for this. Its autonomous driving law came into force in July 2021 and allows Level 4 vehicles on public roads in approved operating areas.
At EU level, Regulation 2022/1426 sets type-approval rules for automated driving systems of fully automated vehicles, including trucks. It covers specific use cases such as hub-to-hub transport on a predefined route with fixed start and end points.
In the UK, the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 will be implemented in full from the second half of 2027. The government’s plans so far focus on passenger services, not freight.
What it means for drivers
For now, driverless trucks work on short, simple routes: between warehouses, inside ports, or from a distribution centre to a store. These are often the shuttle runs that operators find hardest to staff.
The role of the driver is also changing rather than disappearing. In the Ohio project, a remote operator supervises each truck. Einride said after its Belgian test that it can “scale with less than one remote operator per vehicle”, which means one person could eventually monitor several trucks.
Long-haul driving on European motorways is still some way off. Other projects, such as SuperPanther and DHL, are testing autonomous technology with a driver on board. But the Ohio and German routes show that, on the right routes, the truck without a driver is no longer a prototype.
