This Electric Off-Roader Could Replace The Land Rover Defender
This is the prototype of the Bollinger Motors B1, an all-electric ‘sport utility truck’ designed to plug the gap the Land Rover Defender left behind.
Revealed in Manhattan over the weekend, the four-seater looks like it has been styled to echo the Defender’s look as closely as possible without actually infringing any design trademarks. Built out of aluminium with a strong steel roll-over protection cage, it’s not exactly heavy in comparison to steel girder chassis, though, giving it an immediate advantage over the old Defender.
Thanks to a twin-motor setup it has full-time all-wheel drive, and with a modest 1769kg weight to haul around, the B1 prototype will hit 60mph in just 4.5 seconds on the way to a 127mph top speed. Power is reportedly 360bhp, with torque a muscular 472lb ft. Weight distribution is, interestingly, a perfect 50:50.
This is designed to be a working vehicle, and has used the extra space afforded by the electric drivetrain to maximise the load practicality. It can carry almost 2.8 tonnes of payload, says its spec sheet, and the towing capacity is listed as the same American 6100lbs. The ground clearance is adjustable between just over 25cm and almost 51cm, for proper mud-plugging escapes or difficult working conditions.
Bollinger has used some pretty unusual measures to demonstrate the car’s size, quoting an overall maximum 2690 litres of space if you take the rear seats out – about double what you get in an average family car with the seats down. Some 396 litres of that total are hidden beneath the bonnet, and a wide pass-through hatch from inside the cabin means the driver can fit 24 2x4 lengths of wood measuring up to 12 feet long inside the B1 without having to have the boot open. A split rear tailgate increases the length of the floor to over 15 feet.
More curious stats include that the B1 can hold 72 half-inch sheets of 8x4 drywall in the rear cargo area, and there are mains-voltage charging electrics. There are also 12-volt and USB plugs as standard.
There will be 60kWh and 100kWh versions, the latter having an 80-mile longer driving range: 200 miles vs 120 for the 60kWh car. The latter takes 45 minutes to fast-charge, says Bollinger, whereas the 100kWh car asks 75 minutes of your time.
With Land Rover still working on a worthy replacement for the Defender, has Bollinger Motors stolen a march and got the job done sooner?
Comments
I support electric system’s efficiency & all, but those empty spaces between the seats remind me what an awful driving experience we will be facing in future.
Hmmm what’s the problem though, i don’t really get it 😕😕
Good to finally see a conept of the Defender’s replacement that isn’t covered in bling.
Good luck finding a power source once you ran out of battery in the middle of nowhere 👍
Any Cars fan can relate?
Yup, at least with gas engines you can carry jerrycans with gas
Solar panels. It will take you only a month to re-charge XD. But if ya run out of the petrol in the middel of nowhere it is kinda the same
Maybe the batteries are removable, so you can just carry fully charged ones with you. After swapping the batteries, use a solar charger to charge the now-empty removed batteries.
It’s pretty weird to see the technology of the future in a old design, but I like it.
It’s a Minecraft car
Son?
Electric cars are so sterile, no character
Why?
Off roading also means water and the idea of an electric car driving though lakes and rivers scare me
That’s a very good point!
Of course it’s an electric vehicle so you have to put the 0-60 time in the subtitle
I don’t wanna btch but.. you kinda have to. You can’t just say “it’s electric, go find what’s great about it yourself, we won’t tell you sht about specs”. After all, 0-60 is still an interesting piece of information to know about a car, weither it be petrol or electric and you can’t blame them, you’d want to know if it were a petrol car. Furthermore, it’s still impressive considering it’s an offroader. I get your point but they’re kinda expected to provide that information whatever the kind of engine it has.
This is actually quite smart. You don’t need a bigger range than that for a work vehicle on a farm or anything, and it looks quite useful. If it ever goes into mass production and become quite cheap, I’m pretty sure a lot of farmer would use it.