Harbinger Motors says its EVs will beat diesel trucks in price by end of year
Harbinger Motors, a startup building medium-duty electric commercial vehicle chassis, has just opened its manufacturing facility in Garden Grove, CA, with an aim to deliver the first upfront cost-competitive medium duty EVs by the end of this year.
We headed over to Harbinger’s grand opening for its new facility to have a look at their technology and their big plans to shake up the medium duty market. It’s new Garden Grove facility is the first EV manufacturing plant in Orange County, CA – Rivian and Hyundai have headquarters here, but manufacturing is elsewhere.
The company is still quite new – it was only founded in 2021, and has a team of about 100 people total. But that team includes plenty of EV experience, with executives and engineers who formerly worked at Coda, Faraday Future, Canoo… and, of course, Tesla. Most notably, Harbinger’s Chief Production Officer is Gilbert Passin, who led Tesla’s production efforts in setting up its Fremont factory at the beginning of the Model S ramp.
The goal is as you’d expect – to disrupt and electrify the medium-duty commercial market, specifically in the class 4-6 range of vehicles. These classes cover a large variety of vehicles, like walk-in vans, bucket trucks, beverage delivery, school buses and so on. And these vehicles do a lot of miles, use a lot of gas, and make a lot of pollution, often specifically in places where people live – so the potential gains for electrification are high (which is a big reason why California recently released big new truck regulations).
But Harbinger’s model is a little different from other entrants in the space. These types of vehicles can be sold as finished vehicles, as chassis-cab combinations, or as a stripped chassis. In the latter two cases, buyers will go to an upfitter to build their desired solution onto the vehicle chassis.
Harbinger is focusing on delivering stripped chassis, rather than finished vehicles or chassis-cab combinations. This allows for greater flexibility and simpler manufacturing for the company itself, and given that buyers are often going to need an upfitter anyway, there’s no sense in building up a whole vehicle when this way buyers can get exactly what they need.
To this end, Harbinger has recently delivered its very first customer chassis, to THOR Industries, an RV maker (and contributor to Harbinger’s Series A investment round). It was delivered to Thor’s Innovation Lab, to explore how electric chassis could be implemented into the company’s product design.
At its grand opening, Harbinger showed off several alpha versions of its chassis, and its in-house designed motors and battery packs. The company uses a modular battery pack structure, with each pack holding 35kWh and chassis being configurable with 2-6 packs depending on application and length (wheelbase options go from 158″ to 208″). Packs are filled with standard 2170-sized cells from a top automotive cell provider (Harbinger wouldn’t tell us which one, but we did see some shipping labels on some crates in the battery area…).
In-house design of components is an important distinguisher for Harbinger, which it says will help keep costs down. By building its own battery packs, its own driver-assist systems, using drive- and steer-by-wire – all of this means Harbinger says it will be able to offer lower prices than the competition.
In fact, it claims that not only will it start delivering the final product by the end of this year, but that it will deliver EV chassis with “zero price acquisition premium” over equivalent gas and diesel-powered chassis.
This is quite the claim – so far, we usually have a hard time even getting any price quoted from medium and heavy duty vehicle manufacturers. This is often because, well, they’re usually quite high in upfront cost compared to diesel vehicles. Due to lower long-term fueling and maintenance cost (Harbinger says its motors will last 450k miles) many businesses can save money long term with an EV, and economics are only getting better over time – but Harbinger isn’t promising lower longterm costs, it’s promising lower upfront cost as well.
Now… part of this is due to recent incentives. The Inflation Reduction Act includes a $40,000 incentive for commercial vehicles, which certainly does a lot to bring the economics into balance for buyers (and note: diesel vehicles still benefit from the massive subsidy for ignored pollution costs). But even with all of that taken into account, Harbinger’s price-equivalence would be a first, and a first by a longshot, as far as we can tell.
Not only does Harbinger promise to be price-competitive with gas and diesel, it also says it will offer similar payload capacity. Harbinger told us that, in the 4-pack configuration, its vehicle is lighter than a Freightliner MT55 diesel chassis.
In the world of cargo hauling, payload is important – if you can carry more weight you can make more money, at least if you’re “scaling out” your capacity (as opposed to “cubing out,” filling up the vehicle’s volume with lighter goods). So losing out on payload to a bunch of batteries can be a no-go for some haulers, but Harbinger says you won’t have to make that decision.
The 4-pack is estimated to offer somewhere around 165 miles of range on a 140kWh battery pack. This is more than enough for a lot of applications, but due to its modular design, Harbinger can offer configurations with less range (for campus or other low range vehicles, for example) or with over 200 miles of estimated range for the larger 5- or 6-pack options. Of course, range depends highly on use case, upfit solutions, how much you’re hauling, and many other factors.
Harbinger also wants to bring more driver assistance into the medium duty space. It’s not making any promises about automated driving (we couldn’t get them to say anything more than level 2, which is what nearly all consumer-available systems operate at these days), but it does want to add electronic aids to monitor driver attention and the surroundings of the vehicles, both to avoid accidents and potential loss of goods. It’s designing its own systems for this, detecting and tagging objects, and selling ADAS kits along with its vehicles that it will instruct upfitters how to install and calibrate.
All that in-house design means it won’t have to purchase solutions and pay extra margins to other providers – but it also means a lot of work for a small company, especially one that wants to start delivering by the end of this year.
Electrek’s Take
This isn’t the first we’ve met the Harbinger team, as we saw them last year at ACT Expo and had a quick drive around the parking lot in an early demonstration vehicle. And this drive was fine, the truck worked, it had been running for hours with lots of drivers, and felt about as we expect an electric medium duty vehicle to feel (that is, better than the diesel version – more nimble, more quiet, more clean).
But at the time and now, we were skeptical of Harbinger’s big claims. It’s not that we have any particular reason not to believe them, except that the claim of price parity from a startup when nobody else has even gotten close are extraordinary. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so we have to wait and see. If they can follow through on them, it will be a revelation.
And there is plenty of talent within the ranks with EV industry experience. Some of it comes from famous failures like Coda and companies that have never quite got off the ground like Faraday Future, which we can optimistically hope has helped provide warnings about overpromising. And what Harbinger is promising isn’t that crazy, it’s just a commercial van – but the price still seems hard to deliver.
But the presence of Gilbert Passin as Chief Production Officer, who led the early stages of bringing Tesla into the volume manufacturing business with the Model S, certainly lends a lot of credence. Passin most recently headed up Wrightspeed, Tesla co-founder Ian Wright’s attempt to electrify garbage trucks, and has previously worked at several large traditional automakers as well.
So we remain quite interested in what Harbinger has to do, and if they deliver on these promises, it will be a Really Big Deal™. We just wouldn’t be surprised to see them slip a little… but even if they do slip, the product could still be a solid offering anyway.
One last thing to note – at the event, Harbinger parked 5 food trucks inside the huge factory building. This was neat and provided a lot of food options, but between the vehicle exhaust driving in and out, and the smoke coming out of the BBQ truck, my eyes and nose were starting to hurt by the end of the event, to the point where I sheltered myself in the battery area of the factory (which has its own separate climate control) for respite.
Wouldn’t it be nice if those medium-duty commercial trucks had an option to avoid exhaust in similar situations? I wonder where we might find an option like that…
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Taiwanese smart-scooter pioneer Gogoro is taking a step into more accessible territory with its newest model, the Ezzy. The company hopes to leverage its massive lead in battery-swapping technology while also bringing its smart scooters to a broader audience by lowering its price point.
Designed as a no-frills, budget-friendly ride that doesn’t skimp on modern conveniences, Ezzy is priced around NT$59,980 (around US $2,000). Once you add in the government subsidies from its native Taiwan, that price drops below NT$30,000 (around US $1,000). For Gogoro, this is the smartscooter distilled to its essential core: practical, connected, and ready for daily life.
The Ezzy looks like it is trying to build on Gogoro’s success with its 2024 Jego launch, the company’s previous forray into lower cost electric scooters. The Jego was a massive success and wound up resulting in around 40% of the company’s sales. Now the Ezzy looks to keep the good vibes rolling in a sleek, compact, and intuitive package.
The scooter features a rounded, minimalist body with a durable front panel and straightforward controls. Practicality is the guiding principle: a 68 cm (27 inch) long seat, spacious footwell, and a 28 liter (7.4 gallon) under-seat storage compartment, which the company says is large enough for two helmets – if they’re a 3/4 and a half helmet. Put it all together, and the features sound like they should make the Ezzy ideal for urban errands or weekend jaunts. Add in a built-in cupholder and flip-out footrests, and you’ve got a scooter designed to seamlessly slot into everyday routines with one or two riders aboard.
The design is cute, but it’s under the panels where Gogoro usually tries to set itself apart. Ezzy is powered by a new hub motor capable of speeds up to 68 km/h (42 mph), high enough for city traffic while keeping maintenance low. The last time I was scootering around in Taipei, those speeds felt like plenty on the congested streets.
And while Gogoro’s scooters have long been impressive, the most important part of the company’s offerings isn’t even its rides, it’s how they’re powered. Ezzy integrates directly into Gogoro’s famed battery-swapping network, which includes thousands of swap stations around Taiwan.
Riders can skip charging downtime by swapping depleted packs at GoStation kiosks, which regularly see hundreds of thousands of battery swaps every day.
Electrek’s Take
In terms of performance, Ezzy strikes a balance. It’s not built for speed demons, but it likely won’t bog down in traffic either. It’s not overflowing with gadgets, yet includes thoughtful features that matter – cup holder, flip-out footrests, and room for two helmets. At around US $2,000 retail before subsidies, it’s clearly aimed at broadening access to smart two-wheeling in dense cities. And since the combustion engine scooters still dominate cities in most countries, making electric alternatives more affordable is a key part of displacing those heavy polluters.
This feels less like a normal launch and more like a strategic pivot for Gogoro. While the company’s premium Smartscooters – like the sports car-inspired Pulse or high-performance SuperSport – are impressive, they’re also spendy and niche. Ezzy, by contrast, looks like what Gogoro might want every city overpopulated by cars to embrace: a stylish, comfortable, and economical electric scooter that’s accessible to the masses.
It’s still early days and Gogoro hasn’t confirmed availability beyond Taiwan, but enthusiasm for affordable, swappable-battery electric scooters is growing. If Ezzy finds even moderate success in its initial market, it could pave the way for Gogoro to expand its smart ecosystem deeper into urban centers worldwide.
In short, Ezzy may not be a headline-grabbing performance machine, but that’s exactly the point. Sometimes progress happens not with fireworks, but with smart, thoughtful moves that make electric mobility more attainable for everyone. And that’s an evolution worth riding along with.
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The e-bike industry in the West has long been a tale of two territories. North Americans enjoy higher speeds and power limits for their electric bicycles while Europeans are held to much stricter (i.e. slower and lower) speed and power limits. However, things might change based on current discussions on rewriting European e-bike regulations.
New power levels are not totally without precedent, either. The UK briefly considered doubling its own e-bike power limit from 250 watts (approximately 1/3 horsepower) to 500 watts, though the move was ultimately abandoned.
But this time, the call for more power is coming from within the house – i.e., Germany. The Germans are the undisputed leaders and trend setters in the European e-bike market, accounting for around two million sales of e-bikes per year. Home to leading e-bike drive makers like Bosch, the country has yet another advantage when it comes to making – or regulating – waves in the industry.
And while there aren’t any pending law changes, the largest German trade organization ZIV (Zweirad-Industrie-Verband), which is highly influential in achieving such changes, is now discussing what it believes could be pertinent updates to current EU electric bike regulations.
Some of the new regulations involve creating rules maxing out power at levels such as 400% or 600% of the human pedaling input. But a key component of the proposed plan includes changing the present day power limit of e-bikes from 250W of continuous power at the motor to 750W of peak power at the drive wheel.
The difference includes some nuance, since continuous power is often considered more of a nominal figure, meaning nearly every e-bike motor in Europe wears a “250W” or less sticker despite often outputting a higher level of peak power. Even Bosch, which has to walk the tight and narrow as a leader in the European e-bike drive market, shared that its newest models of motors are capable of peak power ratings in the 600W level. That’s still far from the commonly 1,000W to 1,300W peak power seen in US e-bike motors, but offers a nice boost over an actual 250W motor.
Other new regulations up for discussion include proposals to limit fully-loaded cargo e-bike weights to either 250 kg (550 lb) for two-wheelers or 300 kg (660 lb) for e-bikes with more than two wheels. As road.cc explained, ZIV also noted that, “separate framework conditions and parameters must be defined for cargo bikes weighing more than 300 kg (see EN 17860-4:2025) as they differ significantly from EPACs and bicycles in their dynamics, design and operation.” Such heavy-duty cargo e-bikes, which often more closely resemble small delivery vans than large cargo bikes, are becoming more common in the industry and have raised concerns about cargo e-bike bloat, especially in dedicated cycling paths.
It’s too early to say whether European e-bike regulations will actually change, but the fact that key industry voices with the power to influence policy are openly advocating for it suggests that new rules for the European market are a real possibility.
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China just laid out a plan to roll out over 100,000 ultra-fast EV charging stations by 2027 – and they’ll all be open to the public.
The National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) joint notice, issued on Monday, asks local authorities to put together construction plans for highway service areas and prioritize the ones that see 40% or more usage during holiday travel rushes.
The NDRC notes that China’s ultra-fast EV charging infrastructure needs upgrading as more 800V EVs hit the road. Those high-voltage platforms can handle super-fast charging in as little as 10 to 30 minutes, but only if the charging hardware is up to speed.
China had 31.4 million EVs on the road at the end of 2024 – nearly 9% of the country’s total vehicle fleet. But charging access is still catching up. As of May 2025, there were 14.4 million charging points, or roughly 1 for every 2.2 EVs.
To keep the grid running smoothly, China wants new chargers to be smart, with dynamic pricing to incentivize off-peak charging and solar and storage to power the charging stations.
To make the business side work, the government is pushing for 10-year leases for charging station operators, and it’s backing the buildout with local government bonds.
The NDRC emphasized that the DC fast chargers built will be open to the public. This is a big deal because a lot of fast chargers in China aren’t. For example, BYD’s new megawatt chargers aren’t open to third-party vehicles.
As of September 2024, China had expanded its charging infrastructure to 11.4 million EV chargers, but only 3.3 million were public.
Read more: California now has nearly 50% more EV chargers than gas nozzles
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