Bollinger Shuts Down
One day after we wrote about how Bollinger was in serious financial strife, the company has officially closed its doors.
According to the Detroit Free Press, internal emails sent over by the company's HR director dated Bollinger's final day of operation was last Friday.
"We received word late last night that the day has arrived, we are to officially close the doors of Bollinger Motors, effective today, November 21st, 2025," Human Resources Director, Helen Watson, told the outlet.
This comes after mounting evidence that the business was having trouble making payments, including to its own employees. The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity confirmed that Bollinger presently has 59 individual reports of unpaid wages last week.
COO Walter Collins had told employees that October payments would be delayed. Now, CEO David Michery has reportedly staff that the company will make good on the last two missed pay periods as its final act.
"I am working on creating checks for the 10/31/2025 payroll and believe they will be in hand on Monday," Watson explained in an email. "It is the end of an era but one you should all be very proud of."
Bollinger has had a rough go of things. Originally envisioned as a business that would build hardcore, all-electric SUVs and pickup trucks in 2015, it later pivoted to building electrified commercial trucks. While it did end up completing one Class 4 design, things never really got off the ground.
The company went into receivership earlier this year after being sued by founder Robert Bollinger over a $10-million loan he issued in October of 2024. While the matter was dealt with, Mullen Automotive (which purchased a controlling stake in the company in 2022) noted that it still had several suppliers that needed to be paid.
Sadly about a half-dozen of those businesses have taken legal action against Bollinger over an estimated $5 million in unpaid bills.
Obviously, financial issues have been a major hurdle for the EV startup as the years rolled on. But dwindling interest in all-electric commercial vehicles and waning government subsidies probably would have done it in eventually. Bollinger had attempted to strike while the iron was hot. However, it seems to have missed the window for both electrified passenger trucks and commercial vehicles.
Bollinger Motors is effectively dead. But Bollinger Innovations apparently lives on for now, despite having delisted itself from the NASDAQ stock exchange after its shares effectively became worthless. This comes after numerous reverse stock splits within the last year and subsequent sell-offs. This is another one of those instances where the only people that seemed to have benefited from the EV startup were those that bought in early and sold before the collapse.
[Images: Bollinger]
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Consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulations. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, he has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed about the automotive sector by national broadcasts, participated in a few amateur rallying events, and driven more rental cars than anyone ever should. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and learned to drive by twelve. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer and motorcycles.
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