Mullen Automotive, Inc., is an American automotive and

electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a motor vehicle whose propulsion is powered fully or mostly by electricity. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road vehicle, road and rail vehicles, electric boats and Submersible, submer ...

manufacturer headquartered in

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. Its products include passenger electric vehicles and commercial vehicles. The company is primarily involved in

rebadging In the automotive industry, rebadging (also known as badge engineering, an intentionally ironic misnomer in that little or no actual engineering takes place) is a form of market segmentation used by automobile manufacturers around the world. T ...

Chinese

captive import Captive import is a marketing term and a strategy for a vehicle that is foreign-built and sold under the name of an importer or by a domestic automaker through its own dealer distribution system. The foreign vehicle may be produced by a subsidia ...

s such as the Mullen Campus, Mullen One, Mullen Three, Mullen Go, and Mullen GT lines. The company intended to field a luxury vehicle, the Mullen Five, then pivot to all-consumer electric vehicle models. Development of the Mullen Five was cancelled in 2024. For the 12 months period ending September 30th 2024, Mullen lost 506 million dollars on revenue of 1 million dollars, and at the end of the period the company had 10 million dollars in cash.

History

The Mullen Automotive brand was created by David Michery by combining the companies Mullen Motor Cars with

Coda Automotive Coda Automotive Inc. was a privately held American company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The company designed and assembled lithium-iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery systems for automotive and power storage utility applications, and ...

. Michery planned for rapid expansion of the company, but as of 2023 the company hasn't released a single vehicle since its inception except for imported Chinese vehicles. Mullen originally intended to launch the Dragonfly K50 luxury sports car, now called the Mullen GT and GTRS, in the U.S. by 2021. However , the company is still finalizing engineering. The vehicle is based heavily on the

Qiantu K50 The Qiantu K50 is an all-electric sports car designed and manufactured by the Chinese automotive manufacturer Qiantu Motor beginning in 2018 and ending in November 2020. Overview Unveiled at the 2015 Shanghai Auto Show, the production Qiantu K5 ...

. On June 15, 2020, Mullen Technologies announced a merger agreement with payments-as-a-service platform Net Element, Inc., which was completed in November 2021. This reverse merger resulted in Mullen becoming a subsidiary of Net Element, and Net Element changing its name to Mullen Automotive, Inc. On March 17, 2021, Mullen Technologies announced that they would open a factory in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...

for the manufacture of their Mullen FIVE crossover SUV, with plans to sell these models as early as 2024. However, in November 2021, Mullen purchased a facility in nearby

Robinsonville, Mississippi Tunica Resorts, In April 2022, an article by

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presented Mullen as one of "the worst lectric vehiclehustles" in recent history. In September 2022 Mullen purchased a controlling stake in Bollinger Motors, a manufacturer of EV pick-ups and SUVs, for $148.2 million This valued pre-revenue Bollinger Motors at $247 Million. In June 2022, Bollinger had little more than a month left of cash to cover operating expenses. Bollinger Motors was insolvent placed into receivership in 2025.

Vehicles

Mullen Go

The Mullen Go is an electric city car unveiled by Mullen Automotive in October 2022. Being essentially a rebadged Chinese Xiaohu FEV, the Go serves as a last mile delivery vehicle.

Mullen One

The Mullen One is a rebadged version of the

Wuling Motors Wuling Motor Holdings., Ltd, (doing business as Wuling Motors; ) is a Chinese manufacturer of automobiles, subsidiary of Guangxi Automotive Group. The company produce engines, and special purpose vehicles, namely mini electric cars, people move ...

G100 van. An unhomologated version of the Wuling G100 van, titled Mullen Campus, is sold for use only on private property, without the safety improvements added to the Mullen One.

Mullen Three

The Mullen Three is a three-seat, cab-over class 3 last-mile delivery truck with a 60/120Kw (rated/peak) Jing-jin electric engine generating 150/320Nm of torque. It is manufactured by Yuejin, a subsidiary of

SAIC Motor SAIC Motor Corp., Ltd. (formerly Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) is a Chinese State-owned enterprises of China, state-owned automobile manufacturer headquartered in Anting, Shanghai. Founded in 1955, it is currently the largest of the ...

, a state-owned enterprise of China.

Mullen GT and GTRS

The Mullen GT and GTRS are rebadged kit versions of the

Mullen FIVE

Mullen has been developing a premium compact SUV titled Mullen FIVE, but development was cancelled in 2024.

Bollinger B4

Mullen's acquired subsidiary Bollinger Motors has delivered several Bollinger B4 truck in 2024.

Controversies

CEO compensation and awards

Despite Mullen Automotive Inc being unprofitable, Michery has continued with a base salary of US$750,000 per year and received a number of performance awards totalling over $40M . At Mullen's 2023 annual shareholder's meeting, Michery was granted further 2023 performance awards. On August 31, 2023, Michery, along with Wes Christian, appeared on Fox Business's Making Money show hosted by Charles Payne to discuss the Mullen "Naked Shorting" lawsuit filed against

TD Ameritrade TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation was a stockbroker that offered an electronic trading platform for the trade of financial assets. The company was founded in 1975 as First Omaha Securities. In 2006, it acquired the United States operations of TD ...

, Charles Schwab, and National Finance Services, in which Michery alleged illegal short selling of Mullen stock by the defendants. In the second half of the interview, Payne asked Michery about his compensation. Michery did not respond with an explanation before technical audio issues occurred. Charles Schwab has denied all of the charges. In a press release the following day by Mullen, the company responded to the question of $31M in General and Administrative expenses for the company's third quarter but did not answer the question about the CEO's compensation.

References

{{Insolvent EV companies Car manufacturers of the United States Battery electric vehicle manufacturers Plug-in hybrid vehicle manufacturers Sports car manufacturers Electric vehicle manufacturers of the United States Motor vehicle manufacturers based in California 2014 establishments in California Companies based in Brea, California American companies established in 2014 Automotive companies established in 2014