Bollinger Motors announced today that it is refocusing its development team to concentrate on commercial vehicles; at least for now. But with the electric truck market getting more crowded by the day, essentially Bollinger has killed its pickup truck plans. And honestly, other than its stark industrial design, there wasn’t much else it will do differently than the myriad other truck EVs either selling now or will be soon.

The EV truck landscape is getting crowded

That list includes the Rivian R1T already in production, and the Ford F-150 Lightning set to start production by spring. Then there are the pickup trucks ready to launch between now and 2025. Those would be the Chevy Silverado EV and Tesla’s Cybertruck by 2024, and a Ram EV in 2025. And stabbed between those are a couple of startups that may or may not make it to production, including Lordstown and Nikola. 

So it’s becoming crowded, with the big three truck makers all hard at it. And whereas range is what’s important for pickup truck consumers, commercial EV applications have other priorities. And Bollinger has stated it can produce a Class-E-5 truck to handle a payload of 11,500 lbs. If it can develop a commercial truck with that kind of payload, then Bollinger might have a chance at success.

Why Bollinger has pivoted

As originally planned, Bollinger was developing its B1 SUV and B2 pickup truck for consumers. Soon $1,000 deposits were being sent to the company. It boasted it had over 10,000 reservations for the B1 and B2 in 2017 alone. Now it says that anyone who sent in a deposit will receive a refund. 

“When we revealed the B1 and B2 in 2019, we showed the chassis underneath, and that’s when commercial interest started happening,” Robert Bollinger told Automotive News. “Large companies were coming to us and asking if they could use it for their commercial fleets.” At the time Bollinger only had a four-wheel-drive layout.

There was more interest in a Bollinger commercial offering

But those inquiries prompted Bollinger to begin developing a two-wheel-drive application for commercial use. “We’ve been developing the commercial side for over a year and a half now,” Bollinger says. “As that interest keeps growing and as regulations demand fleets go electric, there are so many companies coming to us that we were putting more and more of our people on the commercial side.”

At the end of 2020, Bollinger revealed its “production-intent” pickup and SUV. This was an all-aluminum body and dual motors putting out an estimated 614 hp and 668 lb-ft of torque. In 2019, the prototypes had an estimated range of 200 miles. With a top speed of 100 mph, it could go from 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds. 

Bollinger still needs more development time

Also in 2019, it said the pickup would have a 7,500 towing capacity and 5,000 payload. The suspension was adjustable foreground clearance up to 20 inches. A two-speed gearbox was also part of the package for low and high range. 

But even now, Bollinger says the B1 and B2 “need a lot of development.” Whether they’ll be put back on the front burner down the road is doubtful.