Things look bleak for another electric vehicle startup.
Canoo, Fisker, Lordstown…things haven’t been looking great for fledgling EV makers, and now you can add Bollinger Motors to that list. Now, things already were looking shaky when the company’s namesake, Robert Bollinger, left the company last year. Then, in March of this year, he sued then-current owner Mullen Automotive in court, claiming he’s owed $10.5 million from a personal loan he made to keep the company afloat. A federal judge in Michigan placed Bollinger Motors into court-ordered receivership late last week, according to a report by Automotive News.
We’ve covered Bollinger a fair bit over the years, from its initial run to build the B1 SUV and B2 pickup truck in 2017 to its hard pivot toward commercial vehicles. As typically happens with these startups, progress looked promising early on, but this recent ruling effectively kills Bollinger Motors in whatever form we knew it.
Not only is there pending litigation from Bollinger himself, but the company also defaulted on a $500,000 American Express credit card bill, which Bollinger said in the March lawsuit filing against Mullen was set up with him as guarantor, even though he no longer worked for the company.
Roush Enterprises, which handled the production of Bollinger vehicles, stopped building trucks in March as the company faces additional lawsuits from suppliers and vendors, court documents say.
All told, Bollinger Motors built about 40 B4 commercial trucks for sale, together valued at about $5 million. While the company touted a long-wheelbase version called the B5 to debut next year, this almost certainly kills that prospect, unless a buyer picking up Bollinger’s assets decides to put it into production.
Bollinger contended that Mullen should go into receivership, with the necessary oversight to handle, and eventually liquidate, the company’s assets to repay his loan and other vendors. In the meantime, Bollinger personally guaranteed the salaries of the company’s 100-or-so employees (at least in the short term), meeting with workers and saying he would be “available financially” to help handle costs.
Here is one of our earlier videos with a Bollinger B1 SUV.
