Bright Automotive to enter electric-car derby

Start-up Bright Automotive is designing a line of plug-in electric vehicles that get a 100 miles per gallon by combining a bag full of fuel-efficiency tricks with an electric motor.

The Anderson, Ind.-based company is planning on showing off a prototype vehicle in May at the Electric Vehicle Symposium in Norway, according to CEO John Waters. The company raised $17 million in series A funding at the end of last year and intends to secure more money later this year, he said.

About a year ago, Bright Automotive was spun out of sustainability and energy consulting firm Rocky Mountain Institute, bringing in Waters, who invented the battery pack for GM's EV1 electric vehicle, and employees from Alcoa, Duke Energy, Google.org, Johnson Controls, and the Turner Foundation

(Credit: Bright Automotive)

Bright Automotive is cagey about its product plans, except to say that it is building gas-electric vehicles in the light-duty category covering pick-up trucks, SUVs, and sedans. Its target is to release a vehicle with the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon in the fourth quarter of 2012, Waters said.

What sets the company apart from many other electric-vehicle makers is that its design team is able to start from scratch, according to Waters. That "clean-sheet" approach will let the company build a vehicle that is 60 percent to 65 percent the weight of competing vehicles. Designers plan to use alternative materials, such as aluminum and composites, and save weight by making components smaller and integrating subsystems.

"The auto industry has not changed a whole lot in the last 100 years. It's still heavily steel-based and based on the same welding techniques," Waters said. "When you look at starting over, it's a breath of fresh air to have some constraints removed."

Making vehicles lighter should not compromise safety, Waters added. "We'll be going after a five-star crash rating to take that issue on. (Safety) is much more about materials and design than about mass, as exemplified in the racing industry," he said.

The technique of "light weighting," combined with aerodynamics, is allowing Bright Automotive to use a smaller battery, which is normally a very expensive component of electric cars. GM executives, for example, have said that the high costs of introducing new technology means they expect to lose money on the Chevy Volt, its gas-electric car due out in late 2010.

Bright Automotive's design will allow it to use a battery that's smaller than the Volt battery and designed for a larger vehicle, Waters said. The company expects to use lithium ion batteries and make its own battery packs, he added. Vehicles will use regenerative braking to add charge to the battery.

Bright Automotive intends to make a vehicle that can go 30 miles on a full battery. For trips beyond that distance, an internal combustion engine, capable of getting 40 miles per gallon, will charge the battery. By contrast, Waters said that competing gas-electric vehicles will only be able to get 10 to 20 miles per gallon on their gas engines.

Because it's a combined gas-electric vehicle, Bright Automotive estimates that drivers will get 100 miles per gallon for 50 miles trips. Fuel efficiency improves when the battery is used more.

The road to passenger cars
To finance its operations and manufacturing, the company is looking to raise money by the middle of this year, Waters said. It is both exploring private equity and applying for a Department of Energy loan to promote auto battery manufacturing.

If it successful in raising capital, the plan is to start manufacturing at a rate of 30,000 cars in the first year and ramp up to 50,000 after that.

Waters hinted that the first vehicle from the company will not be a passenger sedan. The company has gotten interest from customers in specific markets. Introducing a car in particular niche, like the military or corporate fleets, can lead to more mainstream vehicles, he said.

"The Humvee gave the military exactly what it needed. Then we saw that vehicle morph into a consumer market play," he said, noting the same scenario for Jeeps.

Likewise, he said, the Tesla Roadster is an all-electric sports car but Tesla intends to eventually build a sedan with the same technology.

In addition to making its own vehicles, Bright Automotive is developing business in providing power electronics and electric-vehicle conversions.

One of the main challenges to electric-vehicle adoption is lowering the cost, which is why Bright Automotive has focused on working with a scaled-down battery.

"If you can get the battery to (an attractive) price point, then you have market demand," he said. "Shoving a bunch of batteries on a heavy frame means (it's) not affordable."

[mowog3k]

This is getting tedious.

Everybody starts out teleling us how theye are better, faster, smarter than Detroit. Solectria did it, Tesla did it. Yada yada yada.

Then they wind up hiring detroit veterans to bail them out when they run aground.

The problem is obvious if you think about it... auto consumers expect to buy a product which runs flawlessly in all weather, year round for at least 100,000 miles with zero defects. ZERO DEFECTS!

Try building a couple million of those every year, supporting warranties and maintaining ten years of spare parts availability for every model you sell using experimental building materials and techniques and see how fast you go bankrupt.

I'll believe their hype as soon as their 100,000 vehicle is sold and they are still profitable. Until then it is just more hype by people looking for venture capital.

You should put as much critical comment into your reporting on guys like these as you do into evaluating the latest handheld device.

[ppgreat]

I like this company's solution a little better: www.indypowersystems.com

Don't take on anyone. Just blend existing tech into something that you could be driving within the year.

[ferretboy88]

Don't forget that is has to be safe or after the first crash trial lawyers will be out for blood. It has to be able to have a soccer Mom drive 20 mph over the speed limit in the middle of winter and crash and walk away.

[dcpyatt]

What Bright Automotive is planning is not an 'plug-in electric vehicle' nor an 'electric vehicle', but rather a plug-in serial hybrid vehicle. A true 'plug-in electric vehicle' charges solely from a plug or regenerative braking. An 'electric vehicle' does not carry a gasoline generator.

However, I welcome any new entries into this market sector... the future definitely includes electrics.

DaveP in Ohio, a current multi plug-in electric vehicle owner and plug-in technology experimenter and promoter.

1980 Comuta-Car
1975 CitiCar

[ferretboy88]

If you have to strip mine for the battery parts, plug in the car(which uses power from coal or nuke plants etc) how is that helping? They better work on the solar power. The panels they have now are only using 5% of the suns power.

[kristine1001]

It helps because electric vehicles can charge at night, using capacity that existing power plants generate, but don't use. So, that's the first step - moving mobility from oil use to consuming from a pre-existing underutilized energy source. Then, as the electric grid transfers to more generation from renewable sources like solar and wind, mobility becomes sustainable and reduces its impact on the environment. From a pure efficiency perspective alone, it is also more energy efficient to move a vehicle with electricity than it is to move it with gasoline. So, you are partly right -- ultimately we want to use more solar power rather than coal or nuclear energy.

[farfalla131]

How come no one actually READS what they claim to have read before commenting? This is not a consumer vehicle. They are not "taking on" Detroit.