I started Bollinger Motors in an old diesel repair shop in upstate New York with six people and a conviction that a better truck was possible. We built it. Three generations, hundreds of people, one commercial truck that made it all the way to production. Then it was sold and out of my hands.

The trucks came back. The machines, the knowledge, the relationships — all of it came back. Now the work continues in a new direction, with the same conviction that started everything. We're building again. This time on our own terms.

— Robert Bollinger

Bollinger Motors Design Studio is a fresh, lean creative space dedicated to original vehicle and mobility design. It is early and intentionally so — a place being built around the work rather than the other way around. The focus is exploration: following interesting problems, working with designers who think differently, and seeing where serious creative effort leads.

There are no predetermined outcomes here. The studio exists to find out what's possible when good designers are given the freedom and the time to pursue an idea fully — past the obvious solution, past the safe answer, all the way to something worth making.

The Bollinger Design Lab in Oak Park, Michigan is a fabrication and prototype studio in the making. The goal is a space where traditional craftsmanship and new technology work side by side — CNC machining, advanced fabrication, and digital tools operating at the same level as hand skills and material knowledge. A shop that can move from concept to physical object without losing anything in translation.

The original B1 and B2 prototypes live in the lab. Every weld, every panel, every engineered detail in those trucks represents the standard the lab holds itself to. They are here because they are the benchmark for everything made here going forward.

The B1 and B2 were the first all-electric, body-on-frame trucks designed and built for serious off-road and on-road use. All-wheel drive, portal gearhubs, a two-speed hi-lo transfer case, power takeoff, and ten inches of adjustable ride height. Every system was designed around what electricity made possible — the result was a truck that could only ever have been electric.

The Bollinger B4 chassis cab followed — a full Class 4 commercial electric truck engineered from the ground up and brought to production in 2022. The B1, B2, and the original prototypes now live at the Bollinger Design Lab in Oak Park, Michigan, where they remain the foundation for everything that comes next.

Bollinger Motors is making a sustained investment in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Design — one of the nation's most respected industrial design programs, where rigorous making and serious thinking have always gone hand in hand. The focus is mobility and transportation design, embedded directly into the curriculum and built to last.

The Bollinger Motors Design Studies fund supports a faculty-led mobility studio within CMU's product design program. It covers professor support, materials, fabrication, software, and visiting critics. The brief and the teaching belong entirely to the faculty. The fund ensures the resources are there to do the work properly.

The Bollinger Motors Design Scholarship is an annual merit award given to one product design student at Carnegie Mellon University whose work demonstrates exceptional engagement with mobility and transportation as a design discipline. It recognizes not just technical ability but the kind of genuine creative conviction that produces work worth remembering.

Recipients are identified through faculty review within the product design program. Robert Bollinger participates in the final jury, engaging directly with the students and their work. The scholarship is endowed, which means it will be awarded long after everything else about this moment has changed.

The Bollinger Motors Design Fund was created to support teams across the country working seriously on transportation and mobility — solar car challenge teams, Formula SAE electric programs, independent designers, and small groups developing new ideas in materials, propulsion, and form. Direct funding, straightforward process, no equity taken.

Bollinger Motors has been on the receiving end of a lot of support over the years — from designers, engineers, fabricators, suppliers, and fans who believed early. Being in a position to give something back to the field feels like the right next step.

The Bollinger Design Award is an annual national design challenge open to anyone with a serious idea at the intersection of design and human need. Each year Robert Bollinger sets a specific theme — focused enough to be actionable, open enough to reward genuine creative risk. Submitted work is published on bollingermotors.com, with the winning entry permanently featured.

One winner receives unrestricted funding to pursue the work further. The award is designed to recognize early, ambitious thinking that deserves room to grow — the kind of work that doesn't fit neatly into a portfolio or a pitch deck.

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Robert Bollinger studied Industrial Design at Carnegie Mellon University and spent his early career in advertising, marketing, and branding before joining John Masters Organics as a partner, where he led operations and helped build and sell the company. He then founded Bollinger Motors in 2015, where he and his team designed and built the world's first all-electric off-road truck and brought a Class 4 commercial electric vehicle from concept through production.

In 2026 Robert reacquired the assets of Bollinger Motors, including all IP and the original B1 and B2 prototypes. He relaunched the company as a design studio and fabrication lab, with a broader mission focused on original design work, education, and supporting the next generation of serious makers. He currently holds the position of Transportation Design Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Design.