EV startup CEO believes his trucks can beat out Ford, Freightliner

Beating out legacy OEMs in any commercial segment is a tall order. It hasn’t been done before. And that’s assuming Harbinger sustains itself long enough to make it to full production—a hurdle very few EV startups have overcome.  

But let’s pretend the startup has a straight and probable path to production—how can it possibly beat out the likes of Ford and Freightliner? 

See also: The road to becoming an OEM

Harbinger claims its Class 5 stripped chassis will be sold at a price comparable to diesel- and gas-powered vehicles, taking advantage of only the Inflation Reduction Act tax credit and no state or federal incentives. Harris said the company will do this based on its engineering and production strategies.

“Harbinger is the commodity buyer buying battery cells,” Harris explained. “We buy cells from a cell manufacturer, and then we do everything else in-house. When we look at battery packs on every other electric truck ... people are either buying battery packs from Catl ... or they're buying a battery pack from Proterra.”

The problem with buying battery packs as opposed to battery cells and building the packs in-house is the overhead costs, Harris said. When OEMs purchase battery packs, “they're buying something more complex with more ... engineering and more margins.” 

Purchasing the battery packs and essentially using a “middleman” is “happening in electrification to a much larger extent than it has happened in traditional combustion vehicles,” Harris said, “because legacy auto companies don’t have any of the right engineering knowledge to build those electrification components.” 

How does Harbinger get the engineers that Ford, Freightliner, and other legacy OEMs can’t? According to Harris, most of Harbinger’s engineers have an OEM and EV startup background, and they prefer Harbinger’s company culture. That Harbinger is based in Southern California might also be a plus.

“If you're someone who's been at one of these startups—in particular, these successful ones—you sort of have two options,” Harris said. “You can go from having all of this flexibility and responsibility working in a startup and launching new products to work at Ford with 27 layers of management above you and a complete disinterest in launching new products or taking in outside viewpoints. And you can probably do so with a 50% pay cut and no real stock upside, and you probably have to relocate from San Francisco to Detroit. Or you can go work at another startup. That pitch is pretty easy for most of our employees to evaluate.”

Harbinger’s workforce consists of former legacy OEM employees, such as Volkswagen, BMW, and Ford. There are also former employees of Rivian, Tesla, and SpaceX. Some also come from Faraday Future and Canoo, recognized as EV startups that are “struggling” and the latter having failed completely.

But bringing in employees from failing EV startups is an advantage, Harris said.

“Once you work at a company that has run out of money, it sears the experience into that person in a way that you really never forget, and it instills a cost discipline that we’ve found really can't be matched by other experience,” he said.

See also: DTNA expands electric vehicle offerings with Freightliner eM2

The product

OK, let’s assume Harbinger has the best engineers in the automotive industry. Does this mean the company can generate the best-stripped chassis?

Harbinger designed its EVs with a focus on the driver experience, something Harris said other automakers don’t do.

“Driving these [available] delivery vehicles is really unpleasant. It feels more like a sentence than a job," Harris said. “I've driven the gas and combustion vehicles that we compete with for an hour. I'm like, ‘My god, I never want to drive a vehicle like this again,’ and that's because the automakers, they don't care about this segment.”

Harris believes automakers are focused on the ends of the vehicle spectrum—with Ford’s focus to sell light-duty pickup trucks, and Freightliner’s focus to sell Class 8 long-haul trucks.

“No one really values these medium-duty trucks in the middle, and the result is that the drivers haven’t benefited from the last 50 years of improvements in technology and driver comfort,” Harris said.

According to Harris, building a better driver-focused product in this segment is an easy feat. He believes the market’s current step vans have received no significant updates since the 1980s.

“If we go out and get in a delivery truck built in 2024, it's indistinguishable on the inside from one built in 1984,” he said. “We're trying to compete with vehicle technology from 50 years ago—it's not like we have to do rocket science here to do a better job than that. We just have to take the time to care about the driver experience.”

While Freightliner did not provide a comment on Harris’ accusations that the company does not care for the medium-duty segment, it’s worth noting that Freightliner’s medium-duty lineup is available with a suite of advanced safety features from Detroit Assurance.

And though Harris didn’t specifically mention Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation’s stripped chassis, the vehicle is a direct competitor to the Harbinger. It’s available with a fully integrated OptiView cluster display and the advanced Roadwatch safety system. Ford’s Class 5 stripped chassis is also available with similar advanced safety systems. Each of these systems was not available in the 1980s, and none are offered on Harbinger’s EV.

“Medium duty is all we do–innovation is at the heart of every chassis we develop,” Bryan Henke, FCCC’s product marketing manager, told FleetOwner in response to Harris’ claim that current OEMs don’t care about the medium-duty segment.

Its Class 5 stripped chassis EV is already available for purchase, and its “ICE technology has been on the forefront of engine technology development since 1990 to reduce emissions while improving fuel economy. This effort will hit another milestone in 2027 with new engine technology aimed at further reducing emissions.”

A Ford spokesperson also responded to the claims, identifying several enhancements the F-59 stripped chassis has undergone since 2020, which include an “all-new 7.3L V8 gas engine, a redesigned steering column and wheel, an updated instrument cluster and electrical architecture, and a comprehensive suite of advanced safety features. … These are not small tweaks but substantial engineering enhancements that have helped our motorhome and commercial stripped chassis products earn the continued trust of our customers and maintain our segment leadership.

“In sum, Ford’s leadership in the stripped chassis segment has been earned through continuous innovation and an unwavering commitment to functionality, quality, and customer value,” the spokesperson told FleetOwner. “We are not resting on our laurels but are actively enhancing our offerings—a testament to our dedication and the trust our customers place in us.”

Regardless, focusing on the driver is something Harris believes helps Harbinger stand out among legacy OEMs. According to Harris, Harbinger achieves this driver-focused design through improvements in ride comfort and steering.

The Harbinger EV is equipped with independent wishbone suspension and electronically boosted steering. Both technologies, while common in the automotive industry for light-duty consumer vehicles, have yet to reach production in the medium-duty segment.  

“Just making the vehicles easier to drive—it doesn't require rocket science,” Harris said. “It just requires technology that everyone's already using in higher volume segments. We just have to take it out of Class 1 and bring it into medium-duty and give it to people that otherwise just aren't being given access to that technology.”

Along with these significant improvements, of the folks who have driven the Harbinger van in pilot programs, Harris said the main thing that stands out to them is the responsiveness of the braking.

See also: EAVX partners with FCCC to power the Proxima

Competing with Ford and Freightliner

Building a vehicle drivers prefer by adding independent suspension and electric power steering sounds easy enough. But can it compete with the dealer networks and support systems that Freightliner and Ford have spent generations building?

The Harbinger team understands that support for commercial vehicles is important. “We know that uptime for these vehicles is key, response to maintenance needs is key,” Harris said. Therefore, the company has leaned into dealer partnerships to generate a commercial vehicle support network.

“We've been identifying dealerships that have experience in selling electric vehicles and that have an interest in being in the medium-duty segment, and they've been joining us as part of our dealership network,” Harris said.

Currently, dealerships in “dozens of states” have partnered with Harbinger, and the brand expects to partner with more by the time of production—a date the Harbinger has yet to share.

See also: Ford Pro offers EV suitability insights, charging incentive and announces mobile service growth

After talking with Harbinger’s CEO, it sounds like the brand has a lot to offer: an EV at price parity with its gas and diesel competition; a medium-duty vehicle with light-duty components that, so far, has gotten a nice response with its braking; and a growing network.

But if there’s one thing that the industry knows all too well, the EV startup business isn’t for the faint of heart. Harbinger’s journey to OEM status is one FleetOwner will keep a close eye on.