Inside Bollinger’s Bold Pivot: How the EV Maker is Reinventing Itself

A few months ago, we reported on the fall of Bollinger Motors—a commercial-first EV builder based in Oak Park, Michigan, that appeared for all the world to be going down in flames. After our story ran, a company representative reached out to let us know that things weren’t quite so bad as our headline suggested. With that note came an invitation: if somebody on staff happened to live nearby, we were welcome to come see for ourselves just what they’re up to these days.

So that’s exactly what I did. But before we get to the latest, let’s rewind a bit. After all, Bollinger isn’t exactly a household name, and we’re not really in the habit of covering commercial vehicles. To explain how we got here, I need to back up a bit.

The brainchild of Robert Bollinger, the would-be EV truck manufacturer emerged just prior to the COVID pandemic as one of the few for-real entries in the heavy-duty electric truck and van market. Its pitch was as simple as its trucks: EVs can get work done just as well as anything petroleum-powered, and it was entirely possible to produce a simple, durable commercial vehicle architecture built entirely around batteries.

“Robert Bolinger was in upstate New York and he had a dream on his organic farm,” Bollinger Chief Revenue Officer Jim Connelly told me from behind his desk in the HQ building. “He was driving around in his pickup, and he got tired of always having to drive a long way to get, you know, get gas and fuel up. And he’s a very big proponent of green initiatives and so forth. And so he was like, ‘You know what, why can’t I find an electric truck that’s fun to drive?’”

In the grand tradition of American entrepreneurship, he built one. In a story that almost perfectly blends the Hudson and Silicon Valleys, the project was run out of Bollinger’s garage until it got too big for the space. At that point, he decided to bring the whole operation to the traditional home of U.S. auto manufacturing: good old Southeast Michigan. Bollinger first set up shop in Ferndale, just a few minutes down 11 Mile Road from its new home in Oak Park.

Bollinger had one of its B4 delivery vans was out front waiting for me. Given how quickly things move in the EV space, a five-year-old architecture seems like it should be downright archaic, but the 800-volt system was designed with some future-proofing from the start, and is still more than adequate for the job. And when customers have provided feedback, Bollinger has listened.

Previously, the truck’s charging ports and jumper masts were located on opposite sides of the body. After customers asked why, the company tasked its engineers with tidying up the packaging. Now, those points are all consolidated on the same side of the chassis. Connelly says this nimbleness is an advantage enjoyed by smaller businesses, giving them a slight edge over better-established automakers. More rolling updates are due for the 2026 model year, which will kick off as soon as Bollinger is done transitioning its manufacturing operations from Roush in Michigan to its new in-house facility in Mississippi.

“When you start from a ‘purpose-built’ and you have the customer in mind, and make changes based on your customer expectations or wants, I think you have a win-win product,” Connelly told us.

“I think our product is badass and at this point, you know, we need to push forward through all of the noise that’s out there with tariffs and incentives and just focus on meeting the customer, getting butts in seats, and driving those vehicles,” Connelly told us. “Because once we get customers in those vehicles, it’s a win-win because anybody that’s ever driven it has liked the vehicle.”

I can see why. The B4 is nominally a cab-over design, though there’s really not much for the cab to be over, seeing as there’s no engine. At 18 feet long, the B4 is about as big as a midsize U-Haul. Not only does it smell better than the average rental truck, but it’s far more pleasant to operate.

Bollinger’s narrow chassis (see below) may translate into a long vehicle, but the trade-off is an incredibly tight turning radius. It’s so tight that Connelly reminded me more than once to take my turns extra wide, lest I be lured into a false sense of security by the deceptively quick steering. At 42 feet, its turning circle is only 1.2 feet wider than a four-door Jeep Wrangler’s, but if you turn in too quickly, you run the risk of demolishing roadside landscaping with that beefy frame.

There’s nothing particularly special about the way the B4 drives, apart from the fact that it’s quieter and more composed than any gas- or diesel-powered example out there, but “special” isn’t really the point with a delivery van. It should just work, and it does. If you were handed the keys to one tomorrow, you’d have no idea the B4 didn’t exist five years ago.

While commercial trucks and vans are critical elements of the world’s logistical service providers, they’re not exactly sexy. Bollinger knew this, and that’s why the company’s initial pitch was aimed not at the clipboard-and-pocket-protector crowd, but the masses. Remember the B1 and B2? We sure do.

That’s the B1 way up top there, and it’s the truck Robert Bollinger cashed in his Tesla stock to build back before the world went sideways. The Defender-esque exterior was designed to appeal to traditional off-roaders who still believe in the K.I.S.S. philosophy, but underneath, it was far more sophisticated than perhaps we deserved.

Like the Rivian R1T, Bollinger’s designs employed a pass-through element that took advantage of the relatively empty chassis to create storage space for long objects. Not only could it mount an off-grid expedition deep into the backwoods, it could carry the materials you’d need to build a cottage once you got there (a dozen 2x4s at a time, but still).

It was cool and it was clever, but it was also compromised. The heavy-duty chassis made for an impressive off-road concept, but as the description implies, it wasn’t exactly engineered to be lightweight and efficient—at least not by passenger EV standards. Consequently, it was only slated to offer about 200 miles of range, and thanks to Bollinger’s small-scale and low-volume targets, it wasn’t going to be cheap. If that seemed dicey at the time, it became a death sentence as the economy reacted to COVID.

But since Bollinger was built to be commercial-facing, the evaporating consumer market wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the company’s nonexistent revenue. Launching a car company is an astonishingly expensive endeavor, and designs don’t make money; products do, and as it sought new financial partners, it was forced to mothball its plans for building the B1 and B2 in favor of vans and trucks it could deliver to commercial fleets ASAP.

Thus began a multi-year process that eventually resulted in a formal tie-up with Mullen Automotive. Robert departed during the turmoil, leaving the company—and his name—behind. He’s not the only one who’s no longer there. Walking the halls of the company’s main building, I saw quite a few dark rooms and empty desks.

It’s not unusual for engineers to be asked to work elsewhere when prying eyes might be about, but the general tidiness suggested that these workstations’ previous occupants vacated them long before my visit was put on the calendar.

Even the massive bullpen on the company’s main engineering floor sat empty, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows that would normally separate the digital and physical work spaces. A lone B2 prototype serves as a reminder of the company’s early startup atmosphere.

And despite everything that has happened, Bollinger still believes in its founder’s original philosophy.

“I know you know [Bollinger CEO] David Michery really wants to bring the B1/B2 to market. I and everybody in this building has always loved the B1 and B2,” Connelly told us, but he couldn’t even speculate on a potential timeline for reviving the project.

“I don’t know what date that would be,” he said. “Does everybody plan on bringing the B1/B2? Um, yeah. But right now, you know, we’re focused just on getting the commercial product out.”

Today, Bollinger Motors falls under the broader Bollinger Innovations umbrella (along with Mullen), and it’s working hard to expand its sales and service network in the commercial EV space, which is still a relatively small niche.

Not only that, but the current political climate has presented an entirely new set of challenges. But just like the broader EV market, commercial electric trucks are far from dead. Even with a federal government that is openly hostile to electrification, there’s still a good deal of support for it at the state level.

“Right now, you know, we’re focused just on getting the commercial product out,” Connelly told us. “We see a growth perspective in the electrification still in the commercial side of the house. There [are] a lot of companies [that] still have sustainability products. There are still states that are doing initiatives in regards to providing funding for commercial to ‘go green.’”

In New York State, for example, qualifying fleet buyers can get as much as $120,000 in incentives for purchasing commercial-grade EVs.

“So, it makes sense for us to target those states, educate the individuals in those states, and let them know how much is available through the state,” he told us.

Even subsidies are no guarantee that commercial outlets will seek them out, because even where the incentives are available, the claims process is not always easy to navigate, Connelly said.

“States need to make that process easier for us to be able to work with customers and to claim that money for them, so that’s what we’re working on right now,” he said.

But despite these challenges, Bollinger has one thing going for it. At the end of the day, it is an American company building a predominantly American truck. That matters even more in the commercial space than it does for retail buyers, believe it or not, especially for operations that do business with the government.

“That was the focus when we started to build the product,” Connelly said. “Especially in the commercial space, when you go out to bid for products in the government space, you know, they’re always asking what percentage of your vehicle is built here in the U.S.,” he said. “And ours is roughly 71% U.S. content.”

“That’s more than a lot of the large OEMs have,” he added.

Bollinger may not be out of the woods yet, but the path forward looks clear for the first time in half a decade.

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