Bollinger motors dies after 10 years, without delivering a single vehicle. The good news: Michigan taxpayers only lost $3 million subsidizing it.

Photo above - which of these EV trucks cancelled production this month? Trick question - both Bollinger AND Ford did . . . .

Were you an angel investor who put money into Bollinger motors? I tried to get a list, and the only names I could come up with were “Robert Bollinger” ($148MM), Mullen Automotive (<$10MM) and “Michigan Governor Whitmer" ($3MM), without consulting the state's taxpayers. There may be other investors, but they declined to have their identities revealed on the internet.

You’re all at zero now.

Bollinger sent an email this week to the 60 employees who were suing for unpaid wages. Essentially: “Sorry, we went bankrupt. Again. Good luck and have a nice life.” Apparently no emails were sent to Governor Whitmer, Michigan's taxpayers, or the Detroit Free Press.

I take no joy in announcing the death of another fantasy-based EV carmaker. Trump’s abandonment of EV subsidies will undoubtedly be blamed for Bollinger's self destructdion, but let’s face reality here. The company had 10 years to bring it’s EV truck to market. Zero were sold to actual consumers. Apparently 30 were loaned/leased to some company years ago. Good luck getting spare parts for those now.

The Bollinger B2’s fatal flaw – other than being named after an outrageously overpriced Air Force bomber? It was outrageously overpriced itself, at $120,000. And also there were no showrooms, no mall kiosks to take a test drive, or websites to get in line for later delivery.

Ford ended i'ts F150 platinum EV truck production a few weeks ago, in case you hadn’t heard. Announced on November 6th. This follows a fire at Ford aluminum plant. A restaurant near my home burned down too. Arson investigators are still at work there. How do you set aluminum on fire anyway? That stuff has a melting point of 1,220 degrees! An unattended candle or pile of oily rags won’t get the job done.

Ford used to claim that 150,000 F150 Lighting trucks have been sold. Don’t you believe it. Actual production numbers for all 4 years barely cracked 100,000 units, and tens of thousands of those are still sitting on dealer lots and at factory storage facilities.

So why did the F150 lightning die? At one point Ford was even giving away a “free” home charging unit (level 2) if you agreed to buy or lease their truck. But the sticker price started at about $80,000, and it had crappy towing/range capability unless you spend tens of thousands more on extended batteries and other upgrades. Ford lives in a bubble and apparently never realized that most F50’s are parked outside, because they are too long, wide, and tall to fit in a garage. So the “free” chargers are kind of useless unless you run 240 volt-80 amp service from your basement to a standalone outdoor kiosk which shelters protect your charger from rain and snow. A mini-garage for your charger.

Tesla Cybertruck . . . I'm looking at you. Your base model starting price is $82,236. Do you have some sort of announcement on future production?

I'm just sayin' . . .

Whitmer’s Michigan: EV start-up Bollinger Motors 'to officially close the doors' despite $3 million from taxpayers - The Midwesterner

Bollinger Motors - Wikipedia

Ford F-150 Lightning Sales Numbers, Figures, Results

Ford reportedly considers ending production of F-150 Lightning EV

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ElwoodBlues · M

@AthrillatheHunt says

in the end we will find EV batteries do way more damage to the planet than CO2 emissions

Really??? The main difference between an EV and an ICE is the battery.

A Tesla Model 3 battery contains about 40Kg of lithium; the Model Y is around 75Kg. This battery lasts the lifetime of the car -- 120,000 miles.

A typical American car gets 25mpg; goes 12,000 miles per year; 480 gallons/year or 2976 lbs/year. With the same 10 year service life, the care will burn close to 30,000 lbs of gas in its lifetime. Also, 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields approximately 19 to 20 gallons of gasoline, so over the lifetime of the car, over 60,000 pounds of crude need to be pumped and refined to operate the car.

Are you honestly trying to claim that extracting and refining 75Kg of lithium (165 lbs) is worse for the planet than extracting and refining 60,000 pounds of crude oil, then burning half?? You're saying that lithium recovery is pound for pound 340X worse for the planet than oil recovery??

UPDATE

If you're wondering what happens to the battery after the car is junked, lithium is 95% recyclable, according to Redwood Materials who has contracts with Toyota, Ford, GM, VW, and several other car makers.

If you're wondering about the fuel used to make electricity to charge electric cars, utility powerplants are about twice as efficient as typical internal combustion engines driving on roads.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@ElwoodBlues it all depends where the electricity comes from. we already know that:

1 - coal and fuel oil generators dirty the atmosphere

2 - hydro dams cause permanent ecosystem disruption

3 - nuclear power has a storage problem with spent fuel (as well as leaks whenever there's an earthquake or tsunami)

4 - voters are unwilling to surrender millions of pristine acres for wind turbine farms, even if they're offshore.

5 - solar panels can never be a reliable, consistent source of power. unless you live in the Gobi desert.

ElwoodBlues · M

Nice goalpost move!!

You, @SusanInFlorida, are addressing a different question than the one @AthrillatheHunt raised. He was making a comparison between the environmental impact of an electric car and that of a traditional gasoline car. And, as I pointed out to him, even with electricity from fossil fuels, electric cars are more efficient, therefor cleaner.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@ElwoodBlues aluminum is 100% recyclable. our roads and parks are littered with it, as well as our landfills.

being "theoretically" recyclable should not be confused with how people actually live their lives.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@ElwoodBlues this is true if you ignore the fact that coal is dirtier than fuel oil, and we have no idea how to safely store spent nuclear fuel.

are you volunteering to have plutonium deposit buried in your own town?

ElwoodBlues · M

@SusanInFlorida Industrial aluminum is recycled at a 90% rate according to https://www.aluminum.org/Recycling. Unlike used cans, used cars are not discarded in the landscape. Similarly, 92% of steel is recycled in North America each year https://stispfa.org/library-resources/steel-sustainability/.

Thus it's reasonable to treat used lithium traction batteries as industrial and recycled at 90%+, similar rates to industrial steel and aluminum.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@ElwoodBlues hilariously confusing array of charts, dealing with theoretical outcomes 5-25 years in the future.

bottom line - your chart shows the now defunct "nissan leaf" as the most fuel efficient car in america.

thank you, elwood!

ElwoodBlues · M

@SusanInFlorida says

hilariously confusing array of charts,

Yes, it's aimed at the college level. Apologies; I didn't realize that was such a challenge to you🤣😂

BTW, Nissan is releasing a new Leaf with more charging options and longer range; some call it "progress."

The essential point, which I will restate for you here, is that over the lifetime of the vehicles, the electric car has a much lower overall cost and much smaller carbon footprint than the comparable gas car.