We have seen Tesla, Rivian, and Ford enjoy all the limelight when it comes to electric pickup trucks. There are smaller players having a shot at this as well, like Atlis, but they don’t seem to garner a lot of attention.

However, here’s one such company that has been teasing us for a long time now, and finally it has revealed its product. Yes, Bollinger Motors has finally revealed its B1 SUV and B2 pickup truck. And If you are here with the notion that this might be another Tesla or Rivian product, you’re in for a surprise!

Vehicles That Will Please Purists and Old-School Lovers

The Bollinger twins are not your stereotypical EVs that come with a lot of gizmos and features that can make you go weak in the knees. In fact, the Bollinger B2 pickup truck is so basic that it does not even feature airbags! You’ll notice that this article will talk about the B2 pickup truck more than its SUV counterpart. So, before you have any kind of questions, let us make it clear that both vehicles are essentially the same car except for their body types. To start off, the Bollingers twins are underpinned by a Class 3 EV ‘Skateboard’ platform. This has been developed in-house by Bollinger.

The Bollinger B2 pickup truck is an art in itself. If you are an old-school enthusiast, there is no reason for you not to like the B2. The truck has an uncanny resemblance with the Mercedes G-Wagon. It is a straight-forward truck that is boxy, not one bit aerodynamic, and sans any tech features. However, the B2 focuses on utility and simplicity instead. The vehicle is built entirely out of aluminum, thus making it light and easy to replace the body panels in the future. The truck comes with glass roof panels as well.

That’s An Interesting Storage System!

The best part about the Bollinger B2 is its pass-through storage patent system. The mid-gate behind the rear seats can be flipped open and that creates a long tunnel kind-of-a-space all the way to the front trunk, or how it’s called these days, the frunk. The seats are also removable. This is particularly helpful if you tend to carry long sheets of plywood or something similar on a regular basis. Since we’re on this topic, one would naturally assume that an ‘electric’ pickup truck would have a high towing and payload capacity to boast of. Well, that’s not the case here. The Bollinger B2 comes with a towing capacity of just 7,500 pounds and a payload rating of 5,000 pounds. This is nowhere close to the 300,000 pounds of a Tesla pickup or the 1.25 million pounds of an electric Ford F-150. If it’s of any consolation to you, Bollinger says it will offer a winch on the truck.

How Do The Two Off-Roaders Fare In The Drivetrain Department?

A two-speed Hi/Lo Range Gearbox will be offered to make sure you have the right amount of torque at your disposal under any circumstance. This will help the truck sprint to 60 miles per hour in 4.3 seconds and reach a top speed of 100 miles per hour. The B2 comes with a four-wheel-drive configuration and a transfer case. Amongst other things, the Bollinger truck boasts front and rear locking differentials, front and rear disconnecting sway bars, geared axle hubs, and big, ventilated 11.75-inch disc brakes. The B2 also features self-leveling hydro-pneumatic suspension with a travel range of 10 inches to allow the owners to drive it through the roughest of terrains with ease and let them haul whatever equipment they’d like to. The suspension is set at 15 inches as default and can go either up or down by five inches.


Engine

Dual Motor, 1 Front and Rear

Horsepower

614 HP

Torque

668 ft-lb

0-60 MPH

4.5 Second

Top Speed

100 MPH

Power/Weight Ratio

7.8

Hi/Lo Range Gearbox

2 Speed


The 200-Mile Range Will Draw A Lot Of Flak

Power is generated by a 120-kWh battery pack that is good to go for merely 200 miles on a full charge. It features a Combined Charging System, which basically means a single connector pattern on the vehicle side that offers enough space for a Type 1 or Type 2 connector, along with space for a two-pin DC connector allowing charging at up to 200 amps. The battery charges from zero to 100 percent in 75 mins in case of fast charging, but takes 10 hours if you’re using a Level 2 220-volt charging system. It goes unsaid that the Bollinger vehicles make use of regenerative braking. On the earlier prototypes that we saw, Bollinger had vents on the fenders to pass cool air to the batteries. But, in the production version, these will be featured on the hood. To further aid cooling, the battery pack comes with liquid-cooled plates.


Battery Pack

120 kWh

Range

200 Mile

MPGe

70.2 (est)

Level 1 and 2 Charging:

J1772 Port (110v & 220v)

Level 3 Charging:

CCS Port (DC Fast)

Charging Time

10 Hour Level 2 (220v)

Charging Time

75 Minute Level 3 (DC Fast)


There Are No Features That Add To The ‘Wow’ Factor

On the inside, the Bollinger B2 is as simple as one can ask for. It has simple analog gauges on a flat dash and a basic steering wheel. The truck is so simple that it does not even feature airbags. Bollinger has taken things a little overboard, but Bollinger’s CEO once said that it complies with the Class 3 Vehicle safety regulations. The windows on all the four doors are manual sliding glasses with latches. There is even a column shifter for you purists. Infotainment system? What’s that? In total, you can find six 110-volt outlets all around the car. The truck’s battery can be used to power external sources as well and is not limited to powering just the drivetrain. Oh, by the way, the Bollinger B2’s glass surfaces, doors, and roof panels are removable. Versatile, much? Bollinger will also offer all-glass roof panels as optional.

Some Mid-Size Pickup Trucks Offer Better Towing Ratings

If Bollinger can stay committed to these dates, it can aim to launch the vehicles before Tesla and Rivian create a duopolistic market. The company says that they already have over 30,000 interested customers. Although I’m absolutely in love with how the vehicles have turned out to be, the poor towing ratings are a deal breaker. The payload rating seems fine and that is what Bollinger kept in mind while building the truck. According to the automaker, the Class 3 work truck rating awards the B2 pickup truck a 10,001-pound gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR). It falls under this category because the truck bed measures over 49 inches in width and 69 inches in length.


Wheelbase

139 inches

Length

207.5 inches

Width

77.2 inches

Height

72.7 inches

Front Track

66.2 inches

Rear Track

66.2 inches

Approach Angle

52 degrees

Breakover Angle

25 degrees

Departure Angle

28 degrees

Ground clearance

15 inches

Bed width

4.1 feet

Bed Length

5.9 feet

Internal length

16 feet

Internal length (Liftgates opened)

19.4 feet

Frunk

14 cubic feet


What They Had To Say

Robert Bollinger, Bollinger Motors’ CEO, said that the shortcomings of the truck on his farm prompted him to reinvent trucks instead of just electrifying them. In an interview from the past, he said that “the new B2 incorporates everything that we’ve learned in making the B1, and takes it in an exciting new direction. It’s always been the plan to have both the B1 and B2 start off our line-up. Now that we have so much incredible data from testing our B1 prototype, we can put all of that engineering knowledge into our final four-door B1 and B2 vehicles. It’s the Pickup I always wanted and something crazy better than what’s available on the market today.”

Final Thoughts

The automaker has no intention of making this a high-volume vehicle, which seems logical because the Bollinger vehicles are hand-built. Bollinger does not intend to sell a million vehicles per year. There is no word on pricing yet, but this is not going to be an inexpensive offering. The CEO earlier said that he is aiming for under $100,000 a pop, so there's that.

What are your impressions of the Bollinger B1 and B2? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2019 Bollinger B1.