GM To Invest $5 Million in PHEV Start-up, Bright Automotive

Bright Automotive PHEV Delivery Truck

Bright Automotive, whose efforts to create a plug-in hybrid delivery truck were thwarted by funding problems, is back on track because of a $5 million infusion from General Motors‘ new venture capital division, G.M. Ventures.

Established in 2008 with considerable momentum as a spinoff of the Rocky Mountain Institute with backing from Duke Energy, Google, Johnson Controls and the Turner Foundation, Bright showed a prototype last year but ran into the effects of the recession as it sought to build the van. The company said the plug-in hybrid vehicle, named the Idea, was expected to achieve 38 miles of range in battery-only mode, then another 300 or more with the 4-cylinder gas engine (now certain to come from G.M.) running.

Bright is the first investment for G.M. Ventures. Jon Lauckner, president of G.M. Ventures, said General Motors would “benefit from working with an innovative start-up company.” He said he hoped the company’s $5 million “would act as a catalyst for other investors,” a process that could be compared to Toyota’s recent investment in Tesla Motors. Bright plans to have the Idea in production in 2013 or 2014, serving a North American commercial market that Reuben Munger, the Indiana-based Bright’s chairman and chief executive, estimates at 900,000 vehicles a year.

G.M.’s investment will give the company a minority stake in Bright when a formal agreement is complete later this year. Bright also expects to “begin ramping up” Idea production in the third quarter of 2010.

Mr. Munger denied that the Idea would serve the same market as Ford’s recently established battery-powered version of the Transit Connect. “It’s a unique value proposition,” he said. “It’s larger than the Transit Connect and closer to the utility of a full-sized van like the GMC Savana or Ford E-Series.”

The Savana, and the similar Chevrolet Express van, will be offered by G.M. with a compressed natural gas conversion this fall.

When it becomes a manufacturing company, Bright hopes to employ 1,000 people — possibly with a factory in its engineering headquarters of Anderson, Ind. — and produce 50,000 vehicles annually. But the Idea is far from production-ready, and the company has yet to choose a battery supplier. Mr. Munger said that as a plug-in hybrid on a lightweight platform, the Idea would require a relatively small pack.

Bright claims that its plug-in hybrid Idea will save fleet managers 18 cents per mile in operating costs, and companies like Frito-Lay took part in Bright’s unveiling in Washington last year. The company’s prospects will improve if it also receives a requested $450 million low-interest government loan through the Energy Department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. The G.M. funding may help in that effort. Mr. Munger described the company’s investment as “a validation of what we’re doing on the Idea.”

Source: NY Times Blog