The road to building the world's first hybrid Class A motorhome didn’t develop from solely an industry titan or a disruptive tech startup–but rather a deep, and early, collaboration between the two.
THOR Industries, the world’s largest RV manufacturer and corporate partner of TechNexus Venture Collaborative, and Harbinger Motors, an electric truck startup, recently announced the launch of the world’s first hybrid RV. The THOR test vehicle, built with Harbinger’s EV chassis, is powered by an electric motor and battery system that is recharged by a low-emissions gasoline range extender while being driven. It provides an estimated 500 miles of range, a game changer for the recreational vehicle industry.
Harbinger is starting commercial production later this year. Its products will be available to THOR, and other customers like Coca Cola, Bimbo Bakeries USA, postal service operator Mail Management Services and other medium-duty trucking companies looking to ride into the EV future.
Harbinger announced last May that it had 4,000 vehicle pre-orders from customers valued at more than $400 million. It raised a $73 million Series A round from investors including TechNexus, which backed Harbinger in a joint venture with corporate partner THOR. TechNexus and THOR co-led the Series A, and TechNexus has been a close collaboration partner with both THOR and Harbinger.
“TechNexus' role goes beyond simply leading the investment in Harbinger, said TechNexus CEO Terry Howerton. "We're committed to aligning the financial and strategic goals of both Harbinger and our corporate partner, THOR. This involves supporting negotiations, fostering commercial collaborations, and helping to chart a shared path to success."
The power of collaboration
Harbinger and THOR began working together even before the startup officially launched at the Detroit Auto Show in 2022. By partnering so early, Harbinger could tailor its product to THOR’s needs, and do so in a more cost effective way, Harbinger CEO John Harris said.
“By being involved earlier in the process, the product can end up suiting THOR really well without incurring extra cost for either of us,” Harris said. “That's a lot different than a big customer coming to you and saying, well, I want you to change your product like this to suit my needs.”
Case in point: Harbinger and THOR first began discussing ways to build an RV on Harbinger’s platform with a 250 mile all-electric range. While that alone would have been industry leading in terms of range, it would still be limiting to RV users, Harris explained.
“THOR said, is there something in this area we could do with a hybrid? And we said, well, that's an interesting idea. Let's look into that together,” Harris said. “The hybrid product is a great example of a customer need that was communicated back to a startup in real time so the startup could then go actively work on meeting that need.”
Attacking the medium-duty EV space
Harris said RVs present a “significant” market opportunity for Harbinger, but the startup is working to get its innovative electric stripped chassis in a range of different medium-size trucks. Delivery vans, box trucks, school buses, emergency vehicles and more similar-sized vehicles can benefit from Harbinger’s product.
And it's a market that’s largely being overlooked by EV operators and investors.
“Harbinger was started because of our observation of this incredible mismatch between a very compelling opportunity for electrification here in medium duty, and an incredible lack of effort, of traction, of real investment to capitalize on it,” Harris said. “Money's been pouring into electrification for a decade-plus now, and that money has all found its way to passenger cars or long-haul trucks.”
Gas guzzling, medium-duty vehicles are particularly well suited for electrification, Harris said, given the last-mile delivery nature of many of these businesses, and their overwhelmingly single-shift usage. The vehicle can then charge during the second shift, which Harris said is the “magic recipe for low-cost charging.”
“The hardest part about EVs for a lot of people is charging infrastructure. But we just figured out that this market makes it way easier,” Harris said. “We basically thought that this is way more compelling than other things you can do in EV. And despite that, no one's really doing it.”
Beyond moving medium-duty vehicles into an electric future, Harbinger is also improving the driving experience. Mail trucks and delivery vans aren’t exactly known for their smooth rides, but Harris believes Harbinger can make driving one feel like sitting behind the wheel of an SUV.
“You drive a medium-duty vehicle and it has the same driving quality as a vehicle from 1950,” he said. “We thought we should build the best vehicle in this class. We shouldn't just take what's acceptable and make it electric. We should build a vehicle that is fundamentally better and also is electric.”
Harbinger, now with a backlog of demand and production on the way, is setting out to electrify an entire segment of vehicles the rest of the EV industry has largely left behind.
“Next year, the focus is really going to be on ramping production up,” Harris said. “We've got a lot of big customers and fleets that are counting on us to deliver the right platform for them to be able to reduce their emissions and improve their economics.”