SpaceX alumni nab $100M to rethink shipping with autonomous freight trains

Parallel Systems raised $100 million to scale production of its autonomous electric rail vehicle, which can shuttle thousands of pounds of freight up to 500 miles. The railroad industry was one of the first to disrupt how the world worked with technology, but lately, innovation in freight railroading has amounted to little more than longer and longer trains. That has led many railroads to abandon shorter routes, ceding a chunk of the $1 trillion surface freight market to trucking companies. But as diesel prices reach record highs, some of those very trucking companies are going bust, leaving a hole in the market. Recently, at least 16 trucking companies went bankrupt over only a few weeks.

Parallel Systems might have a way to keep freight moving while allowing railroads to recapture market share. The startup has developed a rail vehicle capable of moving over several tons of freight as far as 500 miles without an operator. If the company can scale production of its Panther vehicles, it stands to make railroads profitable over short hauls once again. “Less than 500 miles is hard for railroads to do competitively,” Matt Soule, co-founder and CEO of Parallel Systems, told TechCrunch. “Our technology allows them to take some of that trucking, and it’s for the public’s benefit.” Because it runs on railroads, Parallel’s vehicle