Los Angeles-based automotive manufacturer Harbinger has unveiled a new platform for Class 4 to Class 7 EVs. The company’s initial product line will include electric stripped chassis and cab chassis built to support the most popular medium-duty body types, including walk-in vans, RVs and box trucks.

“Medium-duty vehicles serve as the backbone of the commercial transportation industry, but fleet customers today face acute shortages of gas- and diesel-powered vehicles, and any meaningful supply of production-ready EV offerings is still years out,” said CEO John Harris. “We are solving this problem head-on.”

Harris says current EV solutions in the medium-duty space offer only incremental improvements, largely by retrofitting ICE products. “This industry is performing on decades-old technology that makes its daily rigors nearly unbearable for drivers and concentrates emissions of harmful pollutants in highly populated residential and business areas. Technologies developed for the passenger or heavy-duty vehicle industries simply cannot be repurposed for the medium-duty segment.”

“Better technology often comes with outrageous price tags, and we’re seeing today’s medium-duty EVs performing for half the life of today’s ICE vehicles at triple the cost,” adds Harris. “Our technology was developed from scratch in order to control top-level chassis cost.”

Harbinger’s EV solutions feature a proprietary eAxle that combines the motor, inverter, and gearbox into an integrated unit, as well as an 800-volt liquid-cooled battery system, with capacity scalable in 35 kWh increments. The pack is engineered for “a supplier-agnostic sourcing strategy.”

The chassis architecture includes steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire technology, which is designed to  improve the driver experience and make the vehicles autonomous-ready. Harbinger says its chassis is designed for an operating life of 20 years or 450,000-miles, and that there is “zero price acquisition premium over today’s equivalent gas- and diesel-powered vehicles.”

Harbinger expects to put the first vehicles in customers’ hands in late 2023, and to launch volume production in 2024.

Source: Harbinger Motors