Benteler and Beep want to expand with buses

new York Yellowstone is an American icon. The national park in the western United States is known for its thousand-year-old trees, black bears and bison. If the Paderborn-based automotive supplier Benteler has its way, it will soon be known for something else: its self-driving buses.

Together with the Florida start-up Beep, Benteler has been testing a fleet of self-driving minibuses called “Teddy” in the national park since last summer. And Yellowstone isn’t the only test location: the 30 buses without drivers are already in use at nine other locations, mainly in Florida.

Autonomous driving is probably the most important future technology in the automotive industry. Many companies are experimenting with different approaches, including automakers like Tesla and Mercedes-Benz and tech firms like Google and Nvidia. Benteler and Beep are aiming for a particularly fast breakthrough: by focusing on a narrowly defined segment, as Beep boss Joe Moye explains.

“We are focusing on the micro-transport business: the first and last mile, i.e. mobility solutions in selected areas,” says Moye. Means: The beep buses drive on defined routes and according to the timetable. The advantage: “We have reliable routes that the system knows exactly. That’s why our buses can already drive in normal traffic, alongside other cars, bicycles and pedestrians.” Beep currently serves 19 routes – with a top speed of 32 kilometers per hour.

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The buses do not have a driver’s cab. So far, a so-called safety officer has traveled with them, but that is also set to change in 2022. In the event of problems, the “Mission Control” can intervene, a call center: The employees there do not control the vehicle remotely, but can instruct it to continue driving in the event of problems after checking the situation.

“We don’t rely on the robotaxi model,” says Moye, as Google is testing with its subsidiary Waymo in Phoenix and San Francisco. There, autonomous taxis roam freely around the city on demand in what is known in the industry as the Level 4 approach. “Personally, I don’t think Level 4 will see widespread use in the years to come,” Moye said.

No competition for Uber and Lyft

Beep concentrates on what is feasible. “We don’t even want to compete with Uber or Lyft with driverless taxis. After all, these just replace one car with another. We want to revolutionize public transport. Our autonomous buses should take many more cars off the road.”

The market potential is theoretically large: Moye calculates that there are 250,000 small shuttle buses in the USA. This is huge growth potential for the medium-sized company from Paderborn. Just a few years ago, the local automotive supplier and steel tube specialist Benteler was ailing and had to be rehabilitated. In 2020, it agreed with the creditor banks to refinance the 1.8 billion euro debt. Now the company wants to grow with new business areas.

“Ambitious goals are being pursued in the area of ​​people movers (…),” Benteler boss Ralf Göttel recently told the Handelsblatt. “The area has huge potential; we associate it with growth and employment opportunities. In 2024 we would like to bring the first series vehicles onto the market.” At the moment they are looking for further growth capital: “This is a very large market that we cannot handle on our own,” says Göttel.

Investors wanted

Benteler spun off the autonomous bus business into its own GmbH at the end of 2021 in order to raise growth capital. One hopes for investments in the three-digit million range, the first investor talks are already underway, according to Paderborn. The platform was developed together with Bosch.

“We want to use the opportunities and the momentum of e-mobility,” says Marco Kollmeier, head of the Benteler subsidiary EV Systems. Benteler relies on the latest technology for this: in addition to cameras, there are lidars, i.e. laser sensors, which scan the surroundings with particular precision. The bus, called the “Benteler Mover”, contains several cameras and lidars. The complete system and the software for autonomous driving come from the Intel subsidiary Mobileye from Israel.

“We have been developing and producing components for electric vehicles since 2012,” says Kollmeier. “In the medium term, we plan to produce 10,000 autonomous movers for the global market.”

Benteler mover

The minibus was developed in Paderborn and is said to cost more than $100,000.

The price is still secret. According to Kollmeier, it will cost more than $100,000 per bus. “This is a completely new business area for us. In the future we will produce the autonomous movers ourselves and also set up a production facility in the USA.” Since the field of autonomous minibuses has not yet been occupied by the large bus manufacturers such as Daimler Truck, MAN and Co., there is a gap in the market. “The Mover will create new mobility solutions that optimally complement today’s local transport,” believes Kollmeier.

Not all market observers are so optimistic. “The target sales figures of thousands to tens of thousands of minibuses in the next two years seem very high,” says a US industry insider. It is hard to imagine that the approval authorities will quickly give the green light: the technology is not yet mature and there are also liability issues. “Waymo and Cruise, widely regarded as leaders in autonomous driving, are more cautious in their statements.”

Big market potential

According to Kollmeier, the segment of minibuses that is being targeted should enable success. “Today there is already a market for several thousand autonomous movers. Added to this is the global potential. We are the innovation leader and expect to sell several thousand units per year from 2024.” Marketing will start in the USA, and then a global offer is to follow.

The US partner Beep is also optimistic and is planning annual sales of 100 million dollars over the next six to eight years. Beep has already raised $50 million from investors. The cash flow should be positive within 24 months.

The fact is: Legal obstacles are still restricting the breakthrough; the previous US pilot operations are dependent on special permits. But that should change. “We are in close talks with the NHTSA,” the US Highway Traffic Inspectorate, says Beep boss Moye. This supports their own cautious approach. In Paderborn, the progress of the talks should be followed closely.

In Yellowstone, at least, people are open to the new buses. Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said at the start of the pilot operation that one had to cope with the increasing number of visitors. Therefore one wants to test the new “technology – and see if it works”.

Collaboration: Roman Tyborski

More: Mercedes names prices for autonomous driving system for the first time.

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