Harbinger buys autonomous driving startup Phantom AI

Electric trucking startup Harbinger has acquired autonomous driving software company Phantom AI, as the young company moves to integrate more technology and open additional vertical revenue streams.

This deal is Harbinger’s first acquisition and aligns with its broader strategy to expand beyond the electric truck chassis it has been building and selling over the past year. Just last month, Harbinger said it would begin selling its battery packs for energy storage and auxiliary power, with Airstream named as its first customer.

Harbinger announced Wednesday that it has already secured a customer for Phantom AI’s advanced driver-assistance technology. German automotive technology company ZF Group has agreed to license the newly acquired driver-assistance tech from Harbinger. It plans to sell it onward to automakers for use in passenger vehicles. The terms of both agreements were not disclosed.

Harbinger co-founder and CEO John Harris said in an exclusive interview that he expects this new software services line to generate “millions” of dollars in revenue this year. He added that the figure is mostly “not material” compared to what Harbinger expects to earn from selling truck chassis. Harbinger recently raised $160 million in a funding round co-led by FedEx and THOR Industries, both of which are also customers.

Harris said he expects the ZF Group partnership to become a much more meaningful revenue contributor in 2027 or 2028.

“The passenger car market is slower, but the volumes are very, very large,” he said.

Harbinger has already been using Phantom AI’s driver-assistance technology, Harris said, and the acquisition will enable deeper integration. He expects that to be a major benefit for Harbinger’s existing and future customers.

“Medium-duty [trucking] has a complete lack of safety features,” Harris said. “The majority of medium-duty vehicles on the road have no backup cameras, no air conditioning, no lane keeping, and no automatic emergency braking. It’s just not a thing that exists in the market yet, which is crazy.”

Harbinger has positioned its electric chassis around a lower total cost of ownership for commercial customers, improved emissions compliance, and an easier driving experience, thanks to a quieter, simpler electric powertrain. Harris said adding Phantom AI’s safety capabilities should make the chassis even more attractive, especially given the environments where medium-duty trucks often operate.

“These vehicles, many of them,m are spending their time navigating around truck ports and pulling in and out of neighbourhoods to deliver packages. They’re all in places where there’s a very high safety risk of backing into vehicles, hitting pedestrians, hitting bicyclists, hitting children,” he said. “We need to have, maybe not the cutting-edge 2026 safety features, but we should at least have the safety features that were commodity in 2020 or 2015.”

Harbinger is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, while Phantom AI’s 30 employees — including its leadership team — will remain based in Mountain View.