Lidl is conducting a pilot in Germany with an autonomously driven lorry for supplying its stores.
The supermarket chain of the Schwarz Group is working together with Sweden’s Einride to test the technology. The trials will take place in September 2026 and at some point during 2027.
Drivers in the vicinity of Edermündel, near Kassel, may encounter a cabless lorry three times a day. It will then be making the journey between Lidl’s distribution centre and its store.
That is a trip of four hundred metres, so residents will not be greatly inconvenienced by the slow lorry.
The Einride vehicle has a top speed of 25 km/h. It has a maximum payload of 16,000 kilos, or 15-18 pallets.
Schwarz Group invested half a billion euros in Einride in 2023. The Swedes have been listed on Nasdaq since 10 June 2026, via a reverse takeover of a shell company. In addition to Lidl, its customers include companies such as Amazon, Heineken and PepsiCo. The robotrucks have driven more than 5,400 hours for them on public roads and industrial estates.
In the first six months of 2026, the company posted a turnover of €23 million a net loss of €99 million.
In August, Einride entered into a partnership with Tesla to allow Tesla’s electric lorries to make use of the Swedish Saga AI planning platform.
DAF recently signed a contract to integrate the autonomous driving system Einride Driver into its X-series truck platform.
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