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Futuristic Electric Self-Driving Trucks Are Coming To The UAE
Startup Einride is about to begin its expansion into the Middle East.
Einride, a Swedish startup and pioneer in electric autonomous freight transport, is expanding into the Middle East. The move follows a collaboration agreement with the government of the United Arab Emirates to accelerate the transition to sustainable logistics and shipping.
Founded in 2016, Einride has a grand vision to decarbonize the freight industry by developing an entire ecosystem of electric and autonomous vehicles, charging stations, and connectivity networks.
The Scandinavian firm is already operating in Europe and the United States and will soon add over 550 km of its autonomous logistics ecosystem to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah. The project, known as Falcon Rise Grid, will encompass 2,000 electric trucks, of which 200 will be fully autonomous. Einride will develop the project over the next five years, which will include the installation of 500 charging points and other network hardware.
“This collaboration gets to the core of what Einride provides — the transformation to effective and sustainable shipping that is fully electric,” announced Einride founder and CEO, Robert Falck. The startup, which has already partnered with the likes of Coca-Cola and Oatly, says its clients have reduced emissions by up to 95% while staying competitive.
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The UAE’s Falcon Rise Grid project follows a series of expansions for Einride over the past year, including Germany, Benelux, and the UK. In 2019 the company became the first to deploy an autonomous electric vehicle on a public road in Sweden, and in 2022, received approval to do the same in the United States.
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Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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