Bollinger electric chassis could underpin commercial vehicles – Automotive News

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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misstated the business relationship between Bollinger Motors and EAVX, a unit of JB Poindexter & Co. EAVX is an engineering consulting and product development firm. EAVX’s agreement with Bollinger calls for the companies to collaborate on integrating Bollinger’s Chass-E platform for use with a variety of class 3-6 commercial vehicles that could be built by one of EAVX’s sister companies.

DETROIT — Startup Bollinger Motors is working with EAVX, an engineering consulting and product development firm, to develop all-electric commercial vehicles.

EAVX is a new business unit of JB Poindexter, a Houston company whose various business units make a broad range of vehicles from Class 6 box trucks to ambulances and hearses. The Bollinger Chass-E, an electric chassis under development at Bollinger’s suburban Detroit engineering center, could eventually be used in an electric commercial vehicle manufactured by one of Poindexter’s divisions.

Bollinger has been developing its Chass-E for commercial applications alongside the boxy, retro-looking, consumer-intended electric B1 SUV and B2 pickup. 

“We have been talking to EAVX and working with them for over a year,” CEO Robert Bollinger told Automotive News at the engineering center in Oak Park, Mich. “In the future, when we are in production, we will be supplying Class 3-6 all-electric platforms.”  

The Chass-E ranges in wheelbase length from 139 inches to 243 inches. 

“Working with EAVX will allow us to offer our innovative all-electric solutions to a broader market of commercial customers and accelerate EV adoption across the country,” he said. 

Bollinger’s building in Oak Park, just north of Detroit, is not large enough to house a manufacturing line to build the Chass-E. The company has been negotiating with contract manufacturers to assemble the Chass-E, B1 and B2, Bollinger said. An announcement could come early next year. 

“Partnering with Bollinger allows EAVX to continue our holistic approach to integration of systems between cab chassis and the body,” Mark Hope, COO of EAVX, said in a statement. 

Meanwhile, engineers in Oak Park are working on the next iterations of the B1 and B2, readying them for low-volume production. The company also has agreements in place for nationwide distribution and service when production begins. In the Midwest region, LaFontaine Automotive Group will sell and service Bollinger vehicles. 

Robert Bollinger, who made his fortune is the cosmetics business, founded the company in 2015 in New York. He moved it to the Detroit area in 2018.