Maersk clashes with driverless transportation company in court over failed 300-truck EV deal

Maersk is embroiled in a years-long court battle with the Swedish provider of autonomous trucks Last trip about the collapse of a partnership that was supposed to supply the shipping company with hundreds of its electric trucks.

Einride filed a lawsuit against Maersk in Los Angeles County Superior Court in November 2024, seeking the container shipping giant’s termination of the deal.

More from Sourcing Journal

The plaintiff said in a court filing that Maersk and its California-based subsidiaries walked away from the deal “after failing to meet their own power capacity revenue targets.”

As for the defendant, Maersk told the Wall Street Journal it had “no choice” but to end the partnership last November. A company spokesman accused Einride of failing to deliver additional electric vehicles (EVs) that the carrier had already ordered while also failing to pay its suppliers at the time.

According to the WSJ report, an Einride spokesperson said the company disagreed with Maersk’s description of the circumstances, which led to legal action.

The news was first reported last week by Danish business newspaper Børsen.

In January, the California court granted Einride’s request to keep portions of the lawsuit sealed, citing sensitive commercial and pricing information contained in the contract.

“(Einride’s) customers could use this information to seek greater concessions from plaintiffs, regardless of the customers’ individual circumstances,” Judge Robert Broadbelt III said in the order. “Their competitors could use this information to gain an unfair advantage over Plaintiffs in their own negotiations with customers, for example, by offering the same vehicle specifications at a lower price or by using Plaintiffs’ projected revenues to gain insights into their customer strategies or business plans.”

Judge Broadbelt also noted that competing electric truck companies could disclose some of Einride’s confidential financial information.

Under the agreement, first announced in March 2022, Maersk was expected to add 300 electric trucks to its North American network. At the time, the deal was described as the “largest deployment of heavy-duty electric trucks to date.” The deal included Class 8 trucks from Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD.

They should be used by the shipping company’s warehousing, distribution and transportation subsidiary Performance teamand would be the first large-scale deployment of Einride’s Saga digital road freight transport system. Under the partnership, Voltera’s subsidiary would build charging solutions near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.