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Mullen Buys ELMS Assets and Factory to Produce the Five and Speed Up Bollinger’s EVs

You have already heard about Mullen more than once here with us. It presented the Five electric SUV at the 2021 LA Auto Show. More recently, it bought Bollinger, which will allow that startup to produce the B1 and B2. If you have never read about that, you certainly do not know what ELMS is. Before we tell you more about it, you should know Mullen bought this company and that this will make a big difference for both Bollinger and Mullen.
ELMS Urban Delivery, a Wuling EV50 that was sold in the U.S. 38 photos
Photo: ELMS
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ELMS proposed to sell an electric van that it named Urban Delivery and a Class 3 electric truck called Urban Utility. They were Chinese vehicles adapted to the American market. The van was the Wuling EV50. BYD also sold a version of the EV50 as the V3, replacing the battery pack with Blade Batteries and mechanical components with elements it manufactured itself. Unfortunately, we did not manage to identify the original Chinese truck maker of the Urban Utility, but it looks a lot like the JAC N56 or the Isuzu NPR. If you know for sure what it is, please tell us what truck it was.

ELMS’ vehicles were assembled in Mishawaka, Indiana, in the same plant where AM General made the Hummer H2 until 2009. Seres (formerly known as SF Motors) bought the plant in 2017 and adapted it to make its own electric vehicles. The Chinese carmaker started a partnership with Huawei, which makes some people say it is now Huawei's automotive branch. Production did not proceed due to the trade conflicts between the U.S. and China. James Taylor was Seres's CEO. He founded ELMS soon after the Seres production failed on American soil, using the same plant to make the electric vehicles for his company.

In December 2020, ELMS announced it would go public after merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Forum Merger III. The deal was completed in June 2021, and the startup was listed on Nasdaq with the ticker symbol ELMS. Last February, Taylor stepped down. In June, the company decided to declare bankruptcy. Mullen bought “ELMS’ manufacturing plant, all inventory, and intellectual property.”

The main asset in the deal is certainly the plant. Able to produce 50,000 units per year, it will make the Mullen Five. Without the responsibility to build the SUV, Mullen’s plant in Tunica, Mississippi, will become the company’s Commercial Manufacturing Center. In other words, it will make all Bollinger vehicles from Class 1 to Class 6, which include the B1 (an SUV), the B2 (a pickup truck), and the B4 (a Class 4 truck). Mullen also wants to sell some commercial vehicles with its own brand.

The purchase will speed up B1 and B2 production by 12 months, but we still have no idea when they will hit production lines. The Mullen Five manufacturing will start in 2024, which is not that much considering its factory has just arrived.
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About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
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Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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