New trucks with no cab, no driver, and no safety operator haul groceries between two Lidl sites on a public German road. The KBA, Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority, issued what Einride and Lidl call the first permit of its kind.
Einride already runs scheduled driverless freight in the US and Europe, but the German sign-off is the toughest regulatory hurdle it has cleared so far.
SAE Level 4 means no human takes over the wheel
The vehicle is what Einride and Lidl, a retailer within Germany’s Schwarz Group, call an SAE Level 4 autonomous truck.
It drives entirely by itself within a given operating domain. No human steps in if something goes wrong.
Level 4 systems operate within approved parameters, like set routes and weather.
What is unusual here is that there is no cab and no spare seat for a backup driver.
The truck operates on a set route, carrying goods from a Lidl warehouse and distribution center to a Lidl store.
Germany has the third-biggest economy in the world and the biggest market for road transport in Europe. It has some of the strictest rules for road safety in the world.
To clear the KBA process, Einride said it conducted an extensive safety validation exercise jointly to demonstrate that the tech works reliably on real roads.
“Germany’s approval process is among the toughest in the world, and obtaining clearance there gives us a foundation to scale with confidence,” said Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli.
Einride is already operating real volumes on fixed schedules for customers in the US and Europe, he added.
Christian Hirte, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Transport, said the project shows that “autonomous and zero-emission driving has moved from a future vision to a reality on our roads.”
Schwarz Group logged €185.6 billion in 2025 sales
Lidl wants to alleviate driver shortages, keep goods flowing, and harden its supply chain.
The company has more than 3,250 stores and 39 administrative and distribution centers in Germany, employing more than 100,000 people.
Its parent Schwarz Group operates about 14,500 stores and had sales of €185.6 billion in 2025.
Thomas Dangelmayer, head of operational logistics at Lidl in Germany, said the retailer is “testing a technological milestone step by step and safely in real-world operations.”
Einride was founded in Stockholm in 2016, and it and Lidl plan to extend the current point-to-point route into a full multi-stop milk-run model.
Further Schwarz Group deployments are under discussion.
Einride, which trades on Nasdaq as ENRD, changed hands at $3.79 midafternoon Tuesday. The stock was down 1.3% on its announcement day and just above its $3.40 52-week low, against a $34 high.
Google parent Alphabet’s Waymo already runs Level 4 passenger cars on US city streets. Cryptopolitan has reported that its “confidently assertive” driving style has led to traffic stops and safety incidents.
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