If you’re like me and you carry a lot of stuff with you when you hit the road to fish, you probably own a truck or an SUV that doesn’t necessarily jive with the environmental ethic we conservation-minded anglers like to espouse.
Occasionally, I tow a small camper, and that really brings down the MPG and ups my carbon footprint. It just doesn’t feel right, especially in the face of dire warnings from the impacts on mankind from climate change.
In short, there is guilt involved.
But a friend of mine recently sent me a link to a new all-electric SUV being constructed in Hobart, N.Y., and, frankly, I’m smitten. The B1 from Bollinger Motors has a range of 200 miles on a full charge, a maximum speed of 127 miles per hour and the towing capacity of 6,100 pounds (more than enough to tow my little camper on close-to-home fishing trips).
There are some down sides, of course, like the 12-hour recharging time from full depletion to ready-to-rock for the 100 kWh-version of the truck, but if you’re going to use it around town and for the weekend camping trip within a couple-hundred miles of home, this isn’t as onerous as it sounds.
Bollinger calls the B1 a sport-utility “truck,” and it can be converted from a half-cab “pickup” to a full-cab vehicle that channels some of the great off-road classics of our time, like the Jeep, the old Toyota Landcruisers, the newer (but, sadly, out of production) FJ Cruisers, the Land Rover and, in a cool twist, the old Ford Bronco. It’s a rugged-looking vehicle that sports a 360-horsepower motor and 472 pounds-per-foot of torque. It’s not a showboat—if the specs are to be believed, this vehicle is a worker. It shouldn’t have any trouble packing around the fishing gear, the fishing buddy and the cooler of ice-cold beer. Throw in a generator with a few gallons of gas, and, because the specs say it’s rechargeable via both 110- and 220-volt outlets, you can drive a bit farther and give it a goose of electricity while you’re fishing.
There’s no suggested retail price, but you can, free of charge, “reserve” a B1 at the Bollinger website. I’m following the construction of this vehicle closely. It may not be an immediate purchase, but, assuming future generations improve, this may be the guilt-free fishing rig many of us have been looking for.
— Chris Hunt