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 ...