Bollinger Motors gets $3M grant to expand Michigan facilities, add jobs

Oak Park-based electric commercial vehicle company Bollinger Motors Inc. has been awarded $3 million from the state in support of its plan to add up to 237 new jobs and invest $44 million in its Oak Park and Livonia facilities.

The Michigan Strategic Fund board approved a Michigan Business Development Program performance-based grant for the company during its meeting Tuesday.

Bollinger Motors plans to begin producing Class A medium-duty chassis cabs next year.

The board also approved grants for global automotive supplier Magna and vacuum insulated glass developer LuxWall Inc. for investments that will create several hundred jobs as well as amendments to the previously approved grants for battery parts manufacturer Gotion Inc., which plans a production facility in the Big Rapids area.

Bollinger, founded in 2015 in the Catskill Mountains of New York, revealed its first working electric truck prototype in 2017. The company then moved to Michigan, where it employs 70.

Jason Puscas, general counsel at Bollinger, said that through a partnership with Roush Industries in Livonia, the company is midway through its design validation prototypes and less than nine months away from startup production of its first vehicle.

The firm is preparing to start production of its first vehicle in the first half of 2024. The initial product will a Class A medium-duty chassis cab.

“These are traditionally used for lower-mileage, local route applications and we’re going be able to offer a variety of use cases for our region with body options such as flatbeds, boxes, buckets and refrigeration bodies,” Puscas said during the Tuesday meeting. “This is a market segment that does not currently have a solution in the EV space.”

Most of the capital investment will at the firm’s Livonia manufacturing location, according to an MEDC briefing memo. Some will be used to expand its corporate headquarters in Oak Park. The jobs created by the investment are expected to pay an average wage of $55.37 per hour plus benefits.