Bollinger Motors released a rendering of the interior for its upcoming electric truck—and based on the image, it's clear the company isn't going for Tesla-like levels of tech and luxury features.
The Bollinger Motors electric truck is intended to be a work vehicle and off-road toy, and the interior reflects that. The dashboard is made up of simple, flat panels, and even features mechanical gauges instead of the digital setups that are all the rage in the rest of the industry. Judging by the thin, upright pillars, outward visibility should be fairly good.
"We want you to look out at nature and not at a huge computer screen in the middle of the dash," a Bollinger blog post said. That's quite a different attitude from other automakers—particularly fellow startups like Faraday Future and Lucid Motors, which view complex tech features as a major selling point.
Bollinger is trying to develop a different type of electric vehicle from most other automakers. Instead of a high-tech, high-performance luxury car, it will likely be the first modern electric vehicle to emphasize off-road capability. Bollinger previously said the truck would have better approach, departure, and break-over angles than a current-generation Jeep Wrangler.
But Bollinger isn't the only company building an electric pickup truck. Workhorse unveiled its W-15 electric truck earlier this month. Aimed primarily at fleets, the W-15 actually has an extended-range electric powertrain, with a BMW-sourced three-cylinder engine acting as a generator when the batteries run out of charge.
After years of dropping hints, Elon Musk confirmed plans for a Tesla pickup truck as part of his updated "master plan" for the company, which was released last year. The Tesla pickup will be unveiled in 18 to 24 months, Musk tweeted last month.
Americans buy more pickup trucks than any other type of vehicle, so it makes sense for companies to pursue this market. But trucks place different demands on powertrains than passenger cars, and truck buyers aren't typically the tech-savvy early adopters that are the core contingent of electric-car buyers. Yet for electric power to truly go mainstream, automakers will have to conquer the truck market.