Tuesday, 23 January 2018

Made in Detroit: Aspiring Electric-SUV Maker Bollinger Moving to the Motor City

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Bollinger B1

Motown could soon be the home of a brand that aims to match vintage tough-truck design with electric-vehicle technology, if everything goes the way that Bollinger Motors hopes over the next few months. In the early days of the automobile, one leading EV brand was Detroit Electric, founded in the Motor City in 1907. There’s a modern effort to revive the Detroit Electric brand name, but that startup is now based in the U.K. with plans to manufacture in China, so Bollinger’s pending relocation to southeastern Michigan stands apart.

Robert Bollinger, the CEO behind the small company with aspirations to produce a few thousand of its boxy, retro-inspired trucks per year, has bankrolled the company so far. But he recognizes that its current location—in remote upstate New York—is far from ideal for an auto-industry newcomer. So instead, the startup carmaker is shopping for space to house its headquarters and engineering in the Motor City, as soon as possible.

When we caught up with Bollinger at the Detroit auto show, it wasn’t quite a done deal, but he said he has already been working with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and spoke as if the move were already underway. The company has been considering the entire Detroit metropolitan area (General Motors assembles the Chevrolet Bolt EV in Lake Orion, a far northern suburb). Setting up shop in downtown Detroit might be too expensive for his much smaller-scale operation, Bollinger acknowledged, but the main goal of the move is to be closer to the company’s potential supplier base as it moves to the procurement and bidding stage of its project. Eventually, it hopes to have assembly done under contract by a supplier.

Big and Tall

There’s good reason behind why the scale of Bollinger’s operation—and its ambition—looks a bit different than for other startup EV carmakers. Bollinger has no plans to enter the conventional passenger-vehicle market and no big funders in China. Its B1 SUV will weigh about 5000 pounds but will be classified as a Class 3 truck (Medium Duty, by federal standards), engineered for a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 10,001 pounds, nearly the same as the original Hummer H1.

Bollinger B1

With that classification, Bollinger has found a regulatory sweet spot in which owners won’t need a special license to drive the vehicle but the company will be exempt from the requirement to perform physical crash tests for government approval, although simulated collisions are part of the engineering process. Class 3 trucks require three-point safety belts and LATCH child-seat anchors but aren’t required to have airbags. There will be plenty of acknowledgment that these vehicles are mostly for personal use, though. “It doesn’t need the child safety release for the frunk [front trunk], but of course we’ll have it,” Bollinger said.

The Class 3 designation isn’t just what makes the business case viable; it’s also what will allow the firm to start deliveries by the end of 2019, Bollinger claimed. And it allows for the possibility of all sorts of body variants without having to jump through the safety hoops all over again.

Bollinger wants to keep the presentation simple, with a single launch specification. The stretched B1—its second prototype—is a four-door with a total length of 159 inches (typical of subcompact cars) and a wheelbase of 114 inches. Bollinger expects that four out of five early-ordering customers will want that configuration rather than the two-door version.

Bollinger B1 doors

The B1 is likely to employ a battery pack of about 100 kWh, which should yield about 200 miles of range, according to Bollinger. In its second prototype, Bollinger is moving to a pack shape that’s longitudinal, for installation down the middle of the vehicle, rather than under the back seat. This should allow even more ground clearance.

Much hinges on the battery choice, Bollinger admitted. Since the first prototype, Bollinger has changed course on fast-charging standards, from CHAdeMO to CCS (Combo), and is in the midst of weighing the trade-offs among battery-cooling systems. While driving, battery cooling may not be needed, but “it all comes down to the charging,” he said. “There’s no scenario you can put it in under normal [driving] situations that will get the battery as hot as with fast charging—and we hope to make it as quick as possible.”

More TVR Than Tesla

The company is currently in the procurement and bidding process for its prototype and has “many spreadsheets of numbers,” according to Bollinger. “We want to find at least three different providers/vendors for each component, get bids, and see what our up-front is going to be.” To that, Bollinger is looking to venture-capital firms and aiming to raise double-digit millions to bring it to production—although he’s fervent about not spending more than that.

Bollinger won’t become a big Michigan employer on its own. After relocating, Bollinger expects to expand his engineering staff from its current four to maybe 20. “Our idea is to use a lot of third-party engineering help and manufacturing help,” he added, reiterating that the B1 isn’t intended for mass production. “Eventually we’ll need a deeper employee base, which is fine, but we want to be a small, nimble, efficient company—kind of the opposite of what people believe EVs to be now, which is billions of dollars wasted by unknown companies.”

Bollinger B1_mtns

The B1 prototype was revealed last July, after taking about a year and a half to build. Bollinger said he wants the vehicle to be made of U.S.-sourced parts and materials as much as possible, with an emphasis on durability—”the last truck you buy,” he said—with a frame, roll cage, and suspension arms made of steel and aluminum for the body panels and the remainder of the chassis components. The body panels, flat for ease of prototyping, will be just a bit more rounded in production models, he says, but their appearance will still fit in with vintage SUVs.

Bollinger hasn’t taken money-down reservations yet, but it has gathered information from more than 13,700 hand raisers. Once pricing and production details are released, we’ll have to see how much momentum the company can gather in Motown.

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