Electric truck startup Bollinger enters next phase of growth plan

DETROIT — As electric pickup startups attract more dollars from the investment community and attention from potential consumers, Bollinger Motors is amping up its efforts to bring its first vehicles to market just over a year from now.

The company moved recently into a bigger facility — formerly occupied by the now-defunct Bordrin New Energy Vehicle Corp. — just north of Detroit. The 36,600-square-foot building will serve as its headquarters and engineering center.

Bollinger has already started adding to its roster in an effort to double head count to 80 by the end of the year. One of those new hires, Ford veteran Jerry Lavine, was most recently Bordrin's North American president and chief technology officer. Now he's Bollinger's chief engineer. Bordrin was working on an electric SUV and sedan but ran out of money and closed in June.

Company founder Robert Bollinger, a former advertising executive who made his fortune in the cosmetics business, has been providing most of the funding for the company up to this point. However, he told Automotive News he is close to reaching two significant milestones: securing investment to take his three vehicles to production and inking a deal with a contract manufacturer to build the B1 SUV, B2 pickup and a chassis-cab model for commercial use.

"We're about to announce our third-party manufacturer soon," he said. Pressed for more information, Bollinger said the trucks will be "built in the Midwest." Bollinger also said there will be news coming "soon" on the company's financial status, battery supplier and a longer than expected driving range between charges.

Bollinger purchased some Bordrin patents that deal with how the battery pack interfaces with the vehicle's electronics and how vehicles communicate with one another. The company also bought some of Bordrin's engineering tools and assets. Those moves, Bollinger said, are expected to enable the company to meet its deadlines.

Bollinger's vehicles are medium duty and are in the same weight range as the Ford F-350 Super Duty, Chevrolet Silverado 3500 Heavy Duty and Ram 3500. Because of that and planned low-volume production, Bollinger won't be in direct competition with other startups producing electric trucks such as Rivian and Workhorse.

The company plans to be profitable from the start by keeping its vehicles expensive and exclusive, with production capped at 2,000 to 3,000 units per year, Bollinger said.

"We've been very honest in that we are going for low volumes and the price point [$125,000] is high," Bollinger said last week during an impromptu tour of the company's new facility. "I'd rather make hundreds to thousands of vehicles and succeed than say we are going to have to make 100,000 vehicles before we are profitable," he said.

Still, the challenges remain significant, says Paul Wilbur, the former CEO of ASC Inc. who went on to run the first incarnation of Aptera Motors, a startup that planned to build a small, fuel-efficient three-wheeled hybrid city vehicle. The venture, unable to secure financing, folded in 2011.

Wilbur, speaking in general about EV startups, says the cash demands to make it to market with a high-quality vehicle — even at the low volumes Bollinger plans — are astronomical, and the odds are not good.

"It's very hard, a nearly impossible task," says Wilbur. "The scale and cost of getting anything going, even at small volumes, is so expensive, literally a billion-dollar proposition." And that doesn't include distribution, which adds further cost and complexities, he added.

Bollinger says he's glad to see startup rivals such as Rivian, Nikola, Fisker, Workhorse and others getting a warmer reception from Wall Street and venture capital companies. That has helped expand the base of suppliers willing to work with a new, small company with limited financial resources.

Says Bollinger: "Things on the investment front are good. Everything keeps inching forward."