Harbinger’s New Extended-Range EV Platform Promises 500-Mile Range for Big Trucks, RVs
Have a need for a medium-duty commercial truck, but want potentially lower running costs?
The overlap between RVs and simple box trucks is surprisingly large. Despite their vastly different use cases, that cushy-looking rolling living room your neighbors spend their summer often has the same chassis, suspension, and wheezy big-block V-8 as the UPS truck that regularly prowls your block. That trend looks to continue as vehicles continue electrify. Harbinger today announced that its extended-range EV (EREV) platform that debuted underneath the carlike Thor-Harbinger RV will be made available as a turnkey chassis for delivery and box trucks, emergency vehicles, and yes, even more RVs starting next year.
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Big Range, Big Power, Tiny Engine
According to Harbinger, a lot of the issues that first arose when it and Thor first started working together on a 250-mile electric RV (resulting in the company’s pivot to range-extenders) apply to the world of medium-duty trucks, too. With today’s EV trucks best suited to predictable duty cycles with consistent dwell time (that’s fleet operator for “time parked”) that can be utilized for charging, Harbinger realized that some fleet operators with unpredictable schedules were being ignored by the market.
That’s where its EREV powertrain, promising up to 500 miles of range and perhaps double the fuel economy of a traditional gas-powered medium duty truck, comes into play.
Like it does in the RV prototype we drove, the stripped chassis sports an 800-volt electrical architecture with batteries—now in either 140- or 175-kWh capacities—wedged between the frame rails. A De Deion-type rear axle with a single permanent magnet motor good for 440 hp and “up to 1,140 lb-ft of torque” powers the rear wheels, while a small 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine (good for just 67 hp in the RV) and a 50-gallon gas tank serve as a generator to keep the battery juiced while underway.
Range-Extended EV?
Like the upcoming Ram 1500 Ramcharger, the Harbinger is a series hybrid; its engine functions purely as a generator for the battery, never directly powering the wheels. In emerging parlance, given the large batteries onboard, this makes the Harbinger an EREV, or extended-range EV, since it primarily operates as an EV, albeit with an onboard generator capable of extending its electric-powered range.
This differs from a plug-in hybrid, or PHEV, since the onboard engine never directly powers the wheels. Hence why an original Chevy Volt is actually a PHEV, not an EREV, even though it mostly functioned as an EV; the gas engine could power the wheels directly under limited circumstances.
Harbinger says its system's batteries, which are supplied by Panasonic from a Japanese factory, can be recharged “up to 80 percent” in an hour.
The chassis will be delivered to upfitters with all major vehicle systems installed, including the motor, engine, batteries, steering, and brakes. All upfitters should need to do is mate their bodies to Harbinger’s platform and hit the road.
While Harbinger says it won’t start producing its hybrid medium duty chassis at its Los Angeles area factory until next year, it says it’s accepting pre-orders now.
I generally like writing—especially when it’s about cars—but I hate writing about myself. So instead of blathering on about where I was born (New York City, in case you were wondering) or what type of cars I like (all of ’em, as long as it has a certain sense of soul or purpose), I’ll answer the one question I probably get most, right after what’s your favorite car (see above): How’d you get that job? Luck. Well, mostly. Hard work, too. Lots of it. I sort of fell into my major of journalism/mass communication at St. Bonaventure University and generally liked it a lot. In order to complete my degree senior year, we had to spend our last two semesters on some sort of project. Seeing as I loved cars and already spent a good portion of my time reading about cars on sites such as Motor Trend, I opted to create a car blog. I started a Tumblr, came up with a car-related name (The Stig’s American Cousin), signed up for media access on a bunch of manufacturer’s websites, and started writing. I did everything from cover new trim levels to reviewing my friends’ cars. I even wrote a really bad April Fool’s Day post about the next Subaru Impreza WRX being Toyota-Corolla-based. It was fun, and because it was fun, it never felt like work. Sometime after my blog had gotten off the ground, I noticed that Motor Trend was hiring for what’s now our Daily News Team. I sent in my résumé and a link to my blog. I got the job, and two weeks after graduation I made the move from New York to California. I’ve been happily plugging away at a keyboard—and driving some seriously awesome hardware—ever since.
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