The story of Bollinger Motors has been quite the rollercoaster ride. The company first promised a gloriously blocky off-road truck before pivoting to a shockingly fun electric commercial truck. Amazingly, Bollinger even managed to kick off production. But things haven’t been so rosy for the company lately. According to a recent report, conditions within the Bollinger are rough, as employees have been laid off and others haven’t even gotten their paychecks.
Normally, a story like this wouldn’t pop up on my radar, but I was one of the fans of Bollinger Motors. I drove the company’s B4 electric trucks back in 2023, and they were honestly way more fun to drive than any delivery truck had any right to be. The B4 is a box truck that you could hoon!
I was also excited to hear that, against all odds, Bollinger actually brought the truck into serial production. Too many startups deliver nothing but vaporware, but true to Bollinger’s word, its trucks have actually delivered real goods in real life. Sure, Bollinger wasn’t building anything as cool as its original ideas, but I love a good Detroit underdog story. Sadly, what started as a story of triumph is now one of pain. According to both Crain’s Detroit Business and the Detroit Free Press, Bollinger has been struggling so much that suppliers and employees aren’t getting paid.
How We Got Here
It’s been a hot minute since we last talked about Bollinger, so let’s review how the company got here. This is what I wrote in my previous reporting:
Robert Bollinger founded Bollinger Motors in Hobart, New York [ten] years ago. At the time, Bollinger had ambitious plans, stating: “Trucks have had the same design flaws for a hundred years and someone needs to do something about it.” How ambitious are we talking about, here? Bollinger said he was going to build the “world’s first all-electric on- and off-road sport utility truck.” Now, keep in mind that this was before today’s popular electric trucks and SUVs hit the road, so this statement had impact. So, Bollinger announced an electric SUV and an electric pickup truck; from my B4 commercial truck first drive:
Bollinger’s truck ideas rose from a need. See, Bollinger’s enjoyed a colorful career working for Manhattan ad agencies before pivoting to an organic hair and skincare company then finally landing at co-founding a grass-fed cattle farm. While running the farm, Bollinger felt that there really wasn’t a truck out there that was both a practical farm vehicle and a fun off-road toy. This motivated Bollinger to fulfill a lifelong dream and he created Bollinger Motors with the idea of creating a heavy-duty Sport Utility Truck that got work done during the week and had fun on the weekends.
In 2018, the company moved to Ferndale, Michigan, to grow its team and take advantage of proximity near automotive suppliers, engineering talent, and potential manufacturing partners. A year later, Bollinger moved again to Oak Park, Michigan. Bollinger had been working on the B1 SUV and B2 Pickup for years. Development started with a team of engineers who lived with each other in a bunkhouse before the truck was first unveiled in 2017. Bollinger then missed its delivery targets multiple times as development continued. The company also briefly flirted with a panel van concept and chassis cabs.
Bollinger canned the B1 and B2 in 2022, disappointing the strong fanbase he built. But the company wasn’t really giving up. Instead of building a funky off-roader, Bollinger said, it was secretly working on a Class 4 commercial truck platform. This was because Bollinger had seen lots of interest for a Class 4 truck for local deliveries and landscaping. Demand was already there for a commercial truck, so Bollinger followed the money. That year, Mullen Automotive bought a controlling stake in Bollinger.
The Trucks Are Fun
The B4 truck also signaled a change in philosophy for Bollinger. The B1 and B2 were clean sheet designs intended to use as many bespoke components as possible. But the B4? It was designed to source as many components from other companies as possible. That way, Bollinger didn’t have to build an entire vehicle from the ground up. Everything from the truck’s cab, which comes from China, to its battery, which comes from Our Next Energy in Michigan, is thanks to an army of suppliers. The trucks are assembled right there in Michigan by Roush.
I also thought the trucks were a riot to drive:
The Bollinger B4 surprised me in how much it didn’t drive like a commercial truck. The Mcity proving ground was too small for me to really find the limits of the Bollinger trucks, but I got to do things with those trucks that I’d never try with my bus or any of the other trucks I’ve driven.
Out of the gate, I decided to punch the accelerator. The B4 moves like any other EV. It takes off with a satisfying kick of torque and the electric motor gets the speedometer rising way faster than you’d expect a commercial vehicle to go. I’m sure you’ve gotten stuck behind garbage trucks and the like at stoplights. Well, the B4 accelerates fast enough that it could be a garbage truck that is faster than you are between stoplights. The B4 is not “fast,” as in, it’s not going to pull your face’s skin back, but it’ll make a comparable diesel look like it’s sitting still. It’s fast enough that Bollinger tells me some customers want a power limiter so that drivers don’t have too much fun.
That quick dose of power is supported with surprisingly good handling. See, “handling” and “delivery truck” don’t tend to jive well. Try to go full lock and full throttle in a regular truck and you might have a bad day. Bollinger’s trucks have their center of gravity so low that the engineers actually encouraged going full lock while hard on the throttle. There was tons of body roll, sure, but the truck felt planted even when I was at full lock and pushing the truck harder and harder. The tires gave up traction long before the truck felt unstable.
I wouldn’t even drive a U-Haul truck as hard as I sent a Bollinger.
Everything seemed promising. Bollinger had businesses that wanted its trucks, and its trucks weren’t reinventing the wheel, just taking existing technology and packaging it well. In theory, it should have been successful!
A Bumpy Road
Well, as it turns out, my optimism might have been misplaced. Crain’s Detroit Business released a report on Monday that paints a depressing picture of the company:
Electric truck manufacturer Bollinger Innovations Inc. is facing dozens of complaints over unpaid wages and a new stack of lawsuits by suppliers seeking millions of dollars in past due payments — and the state of Michigan is among those with money on the line. The Oak Park-based startup, which promised in 2023 to invest $44 million and create 237 jobs in metro Detroit, is in default of its incentives agreement with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. The company was awarded $3 million by the state to help launch its Class 4 EV and has collected about a third of the cash.
[…]
As of Sept. 30, Bollinger had no qualified new jobs and 50 base employees, MEDC spokeswoman Danielle Emerson said. The company has laid off employees since then, Crain’s confirmed, though it is unclear how many. Company representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Bollinger has until May 4 to cure the default by reaching job milestones and “will be required to pay back all or a portion of those funds” if it fails to do so, Emerson said. At the same time, the company is under investigation by the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, which has received 59 claims against the company about unpaid wages or benefits, department spokesperson Keely Lovern said.
It somehow gets worse. In March, Robert Bollinger–who stepped down as CEO before eventually leaving his company–sued Bollinger Motors for a $10 million loan he gave the company back in October 2024. This summer, the company claimed it was broke and sought help via recievership in June to pay back that loan. Since then, Crain’s writes, Mullen Automotive CEO and chairman David Michery paid Robert Bollinger back and promised to do the same for suppliers.
Post-receivership, Bollinger and Mullen were merged to create Bollinger Innovations. Unfortunately, it sounds like the money problems were never really solved, from Crain’s:
A half-dozen suppliers sued Bollinger earlier this year, demanding payment of more than $5 million in outstanding bills, Crain’s reported in July. Those cases have since been disposed, but six different suppliers are now suing the company in active cases, according to Oakland County Circuit Court records.
Canadian supplier Promark Electronics Inc., German supplier Thyssenkrupp AG, Brazilian supplier Metalsa, Livonia-based Testron Corp., Troy-based Engineering Technology Associates Inc. and California-based Aibond Corp. are the plaintiffs in those cases.
Bollinger Innovations was delisted from the Nasdaq a month ago after failing to meet its market value requirements. Michery tried to remain in compliance by conducting nine reverse stock splits in three years, but its share value continually fell below the $1 minimum. The company is trading stock on the open markets at 13 cents per share as of Monday afternoon.The company incurred a net loss of $304.4 million for the nine months ended June 30, according to the most recent financial statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in August. Its accumulated deficit at the time was $2.6 billion.
The Drive also wrote about this, quoting an anonymous tipster. That tipster claimed that payroll is weeks behind, there is no operating cash left in the company, and the company’s customers and dealers have no idea what’s actually going on. I have reached out to Bollinger for clarification and comment on its current condition.
It’s also unclear what this means for Bollinger’s future. The company wants to make a larger Class 5 truck called the B5. Robert Bollinger also isn’t giving up his electric pickup truck dream. But all of that is going to take money, and it seems Bollinger is struggling with that part right now.
I will update this story if I learn anything more. What’s most important, I think, is that everyone gets paid. Then, hopefully, Bollinger can get past this pothole and keep on trucking. Time will tell.
The post The Maker Of America’s Coolest Electric Commercial Trucks Can’t Even Pay Its Employees: Report appeared first on The Autopian.
