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Remote controlled
: The start-up Fernride steers trucks from the office, via the screen
Photo: Konstantin Kraemer
Truck drivers are in short supply.
According to the Federal Association of Road Haulage, Logistics and Disposal (BGL), around 80,000 truckers were missing in Germany alone in spring 2022.
Annually, the gap would grow by 15,000 more.
A problem that the start-up Fernride wants to turn into a business model.
The spin-off of the TU Munich relies on teleoperation.
Similar to racing simulators, people can steer a truck from their office chair using the accelerator pedal and steering wheel.
Cameras and sensors on the vehicles scan the surroundings.
The corresponding data is streamed via the mobile network and visualized on screens as a 3D model.
According to the start-up, all of this happens in less than 100 milliseconds.
In the first step, Fernride wants to make the logistics on company premises more efficient.
According to
Hendrik Kramer
(27), who founded the start-up in 2019 together with
Jean-Michael Georg
(34) and
Maximilian Fisser
(34), there are 100,000 trucks in Europe alone that are exclusively on company premises.
Kramer puts the market potential of this segment alone at around five billion euros.
The first pilot projects are already underway with DB Schenker, and Fernride recently announced a collaboration with Volkswagen at their main plant in Wolfsburg.
Kramer did not want to reveal any further details in the conversation.
At the end of March it was also announced that the Munich-based company is part of a consortium with groups such as MAN, Bosch, Leoni and Knorr-Bremse.
By the middle of the current decade, the partners want to bring autonomous trucks onto the autobahn.
For the time being, the focus at Fernride is clearly on teleoperation.
"The industry has been struggling with autonomous driving so far. We have an approach that allows you to make money quickly and we see ourselves in pole position," says Kramer confidently.
The idea seems to attract not only cooperation partners, but also staff from well-known players.
In mid-April, the start-up announced that it had gained
Holger Mandel
(54), a former MAN, Volvo and Caterpillar top manager, as an investor and board member.
Ex-executives from Audi and BMW hire
Now Fernride was also able to hire two top operational people; the investors, among other things, had made the contact.
Thomas Bock
(39) has been on board as Chief Operating Officer
since April 1st .
He was previously responsible for operations in Europe at Argo AI.
The Americans play a central role in Volkswagen's autonomy plans, among other things.
Bock had previously embarked on a management career at Audi.
Martin Isik
(42) also joined the start-up in
May .
He also comes from the corporate world: Most recently, Isik was Vice President at BMW, responsible for digital product strategy and business development for everything to do with autonomous driving.
He also gained experience for several years at UBS Investment Bank.
In the future, he will work at Fernride as both Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Financial Officer.
The clear focus at Fernride convinced them, Bock and Isik explained in an interview with manager magazin in unison.
"There is such a wide variety of possible business models in autonomous driving that many find it difficult to find a focus," says Bock.
The long-distance approach of first relying on teleoperation and only then on automation is "in my view much more effective than what many big players are doing on the market," said former BMW manager Isik.
"You don't need 100 percent autonomy everywhere. Many fail because of the last percent and sink billions in the process."
Personally, they are now hoping for more freedom and a real start-up culture.
Bock: "At some point I felt constrained in the group, a bit like being in an ice cube box."
The start-up still has a lot planned for 2022.
The first projects outside of Germany are also planned.
According to Isik, it is now important to prove "that customers are willing to pay for our product".
Profits are of course not yet in sight.
"It's not about profitability yet. That comes in the second step."
The company is also looking for other strategic partners.
The number of employees is expected to double from the current 50 in the current year.
And the Munich-based company also wants to complete another round of financing by the end of the year.
Fernride collected 7.1 million euros in the summer of 2021, and the start-up has so far been financed with more than 10 million euros.
Investors include 10x, Promus Ventures, Speedinvest and Blablacar CTO
Olivier Bonnet
.