Harbinger’s electric van drives like a classic, and that’s the point
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This approach could be used with cars as well. Buy the skateboard from a chassis manufacturer and slap the body of your choice on top.
This was a widespread approach in early automotive history. "Body by Fisher" was not just a saying, but a way of doing business.
This was a widespread approach in early automotive history. "Body by Fisher" was not just a saying, but a way of doing business.
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Good on Harbinger. When will a company form to design retrofit EV packages to bolt onto the zillions of existing chassis?
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Tesla Semi has been delivered in small volume to several different buyers starting in late 2022, most notably Pepsico. Plus some inhouse use.
Assembly line production is expected to commence late 2025 or early 2026, eventually ramping to 50k units per year.
Freightliner eCascadia is in a similar "deliver small volumes to select customers, use some inhouse" mode, not sure if they've announced when they plan to ramp production.
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You should go up to British Columbia and take a look at what Edison Motors is doing.
https://www.edisonmotors.ca/
https://www.edisonmotors.ca/
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In SoCal, I'd say about 1 in 6 of the Amazon trucks I see are EV. So, not prevalent yet, but also not uncommon, at least here.
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It's interesting that some cars used to be this way, back in the 1920's. You'd buy the chassis and powertrain from one manufacturer - say, Bugatti - and then have it sent to a "coach builder" for the body. This was for the high-end estate cars, before Ford brought mass-produced cars to the "masses."
Interesting that the practice hangs on in trucks like this. I mean, sure, in context of adapting the truck to the individual business, it makes total sense.
If Harbinger gets their powertrain design and production right, I think they're going to have really fantastic success. Love the business philosophy on this one. And I think the other poster above is right - if they do really well, they're likely to be bought out by one of the major manufacturers and the product line extended both in scope and production numbers.
This is a really good thing for bringing this segment into the EV world.
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Garbage trucks in the US tend to have the lift and other functions powered by hydraulics, which makes it even easier to electrify - You simply have an auxiliary electric motor drive the hydraulic pump.
Much like Harbinger, then, electrifying a garbage truck here is a matter of replacing the powertrain and fitting a motor to drive the hydraulics, and then leaving the rest as it is.
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Photon_plumber
Ars Tribunus Militum
I’ve seen more than a few of the FedEx EV delivery trucks without even looking for them. All the Amazons in my area still appear to be Sprinters. I should take a peak at the lot of the distribution hub in my area. Maybe a few in there.
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They do this in Taiwan already, funnily enough. Leads to a lot of disappointment for American tourists expecting ice cream.
View: https://youtu.be/T8G45uCa0Ic?si=VqIYSdH0WwzE1ePY
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Photon_plumber
Ars Tribunus Militum
What you speak of was the era of the coach builders. None of those were working class cars. They were all commissioned for the rich or royalty. Post WW2, there was a period of time when the working class could have access to some less expensive coach built cars, mostly still hand built, definitely low production numbers, through builders like Pininfarina, Bertone, Ghia, ItalDesign and others.
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Retrofitting existing chassis is far more labor-intensive and time-consuming than new build.
Complete vehicle disassembly and repair/replacement of worn standard parts, all or most wiring harness, replacing controls. doing a cab gut rehab etc is a daunting deterrent. High labor costs and vehicle downtime (when it's not hauling thousands of dollars are sacrificed) make that mostly a non-starter, niche specialty vehicles civilian and military sometimes excepted. It makes more sense to follow current practices and divest or scrap (vehicle salvage and metal recycling are mature industries) expended vehicles.
Once BEV have compelling TCO advantages fleet owners will adopt them to compete then smaller fry must eventually do likewise.
Aging fleets and lack of chassis availability for new builds can make new bodies on EV chassis attractive.
https://www.automotive-fleet.com/10193281/survey-average-truck-age-exceeds-normal-cycle
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You make that sound like a bad thing.
When it is done right, acquisitions are good for tech because the acquiring company can provide scale. Especially for a company like this one that focuses on what it value adds but is compatible with existing tech.
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Trucks taken down for retrofit will need electrical harness and control swaps, basically a gut rehab. Trying to save too much of an old commercial vehicle easily backfires, the reason ambulance bodies are remounted onto new chassis.
https://emergencyvehiclesplus.com/vehicle-remount/ambulance-remounts/
A truck may appear fine on the outside and be a nightmare beneath. A garbage truck body is a large steel weldment making it fairly easy to repair (done all the time because they lead hard lives). Removing the body to sort it out then placing on a ready new chassis offers a much longer working life.
Trucks (and trailers) appear rugged but frames crack over time while other bits like suspension are often so worn and corroded they're removed by cutting torch since none of the assembly is worth attempting to save.
BTW trucks are satisfying to work on and that job is sufficiently complex it's not under practical threat of automation. Skills necessary today include electronics and understanding computers so Arsians wanting a secure career and reasonably fit might consider working on them. Unlike car repair which is a race to the bottom trucks have a higher barrier to entry because most people aren't familiar with them. Seniority is valuable and valued because downed trucks cost owners much more than repairs.
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Even though the current administration seems hell bent on protecting oil market share, not every administration is in the same page. Plus, in addition to total cost of operation advantages, EV helps in diversifying fuel sources for transportation.
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I see them all the time here in Saint Paul, MN. Amazon themselves says they have 20,000 of them on the road with a goal of getting to 100,000 by 2030. Which is interesting given various sources claim their total fleet was "only" 30,000 strong just a few years ago.
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I guess something was lost in my text or in your interpretation of it, but I don't necessarily think acquisitions are a bad thing.
Taken to the extreme acquisitions can reduce competition, but in the case of a company like Ford buying a company like Harbinger Motors, I think that is a healthy example of how acquisitions can provide a net benefit.
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From the business side, the outsized impact is largely in the cost savings and better community impact over time. With lower maintenance frequency and cost, lower noise levels in residential/commercial zones, equivalent daily mileage used, and as gas prices continue to oscillate between "Fluffy" and "Oh, HELL no!", lower "refueling" costs, it's a smart business investment.
The side issue of lower emissions in heavily trafficked areas is an additional health benefit, since the ICE versions of these kinds of vehicles are typically exempt as commercial, rather than POV, so are typically allowed to have higher pollution levels than an ICE of equivalent weight and mileage.
And if anyone who's bothered to read my rants about EV's, are surprised by this, keep in mind I do differentiate between POV's - which in their entirety, are unsustainable - and commercial vehicles that transport goods from place to place. They create high pollution pockets and corridors in communities that would otherwise not have them if all the commercial transportation industry were electrified. Costs would lower for everyone, in most parts of their lives. So this is something I do get behind, because vehicle for vehicle, it has a far greater positive community impact taking any ICE commercial truck off the road and replacing it with an EV.
It won't do shit for slowing down climate change, but it will improve the quality of life in the community by quite a bit. And that's mostly why I like to see this happening.
Assuming this reality allows it to happen, of course. We live in a world where I can literally see this fucking administration banning EV sales as, "woke".
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There's about 20,000 on the road and counting. They are also leaders in fleet management software which has led to a contract for rolling chassis for the Canadien Post Office. Sales have just opened for other fleets besides Amazon.
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This is sadly typical across many industries. Those with the money to innovate are risk averse, leaving startups to maybe get lucky but most likely run out of funding and lose all the data too
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That is incorrect, all class 1-8 trucks have pollution controls and are regulated for emissions by the EPA. They all have gasoline/diesel as applicable DOC, DPF filters, SCR (def), EGT, Cats and etc from the date this was required. You maybe confusing that trucks with a GVWR > 8500lbs wich are exempt from NHTSA CAFE (fuel economy) standards with a lack of pollution controls. https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emi...ns-greenhouse-gas-emissions-commercial-trucks
Ships are exempt from pollution controls, as are all military vehicles. But all other ground transportation emissions are regulated by the EPA.
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*Some European cities, unless you think comparing Alabama's education with the whole USA is also fair
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I see a lot of them in Phoenix. It seems like there are more electric ones than gas ones (but that might just be because I notice the electric ones more.)
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Same, the garbage trucks here in Oslo are electrical, and a lot of small commercial vans are electrical Mercedes Sprinter and VW id.buzz conversions.
Speaking of Sweden, Scania has an electrical truck, though some battery options will only be available later this year. For the range, they say this:
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Just the other day, I watched a video on Edison diesel-electric hybrid trucks. Can't find the one I watched but here's a similar one that gives an overview.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O1u1t4QhCc
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O1u1t4QhCc
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My understanding is that this isn't done because achieving all the necessary engineering goals in such a constrained chassis format (strength, rigidity, crumple zones etc) is difficult/expensive/heavy, while the body becomes structural deadweight that has to be carried without contributing anything.
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Cue the creepy ice cream truck music over the PA?
Opps, ninja'd by Cart_Catalog.
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Photon_plumber
Ars Tribunus Militum
Haven't you heard? There’s now active opposition to any forward progress. Some very frightened and poorly educated people want to dial back the clock a century or so.
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Also the trucks don’t need the aero anywhere near as much as passenger cars. They spend a huge percentage of their time moving at 30 mph or lower, where atmospheric drag is a small part of the energy cost.
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BYD makes and sells EV garbage and recycling trucks, and other municipal utility vehicles, in the US. Many municipalities are testing them out with a small percentage of their fleet to see how they work throughout the year and for several yearly maintenance cycles, which is a reasonable approach.
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The traditional truckmakers have used a similar approach. Freightliner and others have offered heavy-duty "vocational" trucks (chassis-cabs for the most part) for several years now, and have sold quite a few into the ports markets in California (at first due to regulations, but now the TCO benefits are selling them too). This kind of urban/medium range/medium-heavy duty use, where trucks surge in and out of terminals regularly, is the kind of operation where EVs are a no-brainer based on TCO once you get past the purchase/lease cost. Tesla, of course, went for the long-distance market (with spaceship styling) where that kind of operation with practical battery sizes (hence ranges of around 200 miles tops) isn't possible; other than the occasional Pepsi dray, I haven't seen many. If I can only tell the truck is EV by nose (no diesel smell/smoke), or some kind of reasonably discreet Clean Air decal, that's great as far as I'm concerned.
One thing that might be interesting as an addition to the article would be how these EVs compete with CNG. That's been a popular diesel alternative in some places (especially California) for years, and is well-established in fleets like those of UPS, and in most California urban bus fleets..
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Great to see something that isn’t a high end concept mule, that has been no-frills engineered to do an important job. Having most of the parts come from outside means there’s a chance of the product being serviceable for a long time, no matter what happens to Harbinger - I wish them luck.
Fitting 330 employees into a 5,000sqft factory probably helped a lot with efficiency
Fitting 330 employees into a 5,000sqft factory probably helped a lot with efficiency
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Electric Amazon trucks appeared in quantity around Sacramento last summer and are fairly common now. Freightliner's Brightdrops have become fairly common around here, too, since late 2024, with the diesels becoming the exceptions rather than the rule. A few EV UPS trucks have appeared, but they're still mostly running the old CNG trucks. Walmart had some big e-Transits for a while, but has reverted to the Uber model with drivers running around in their own cars.
Haven't seen bigger E-trucks much yet, but then those tend to be seldom replaced so penetration of new anything (even CNG was slow to appear for things like garbage trucks until ARB pretty much made diesels in public agency fleets illegal).
Edits for clarity and reduced redundancy.
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The main actual core competency seems to be:
1) the electric motor
2) the battery pack
The rest of it does not seem too differentiated from other truck manufacturers.
There are several other companies who have the same core competency (e.g. Rivian, Lucid trying to challenge Tesla), so we'll see who wins.
1) the electric motor
2) the battery pack
The rest of it does not seem too differentiated from other truck manufacturers.
There are several other companies who have the same core competency (e.g. Rivian, Lucid trying to challenge Tesla), so we'll see who wins.
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