Bright Idea: A plug-in hybrid from Bright Automotive called the Idea.
Bright Automotive
A spinoff from the Rocky Mountain Institute has developed a 100-miles-per-gallon plug-in hybrid.
Last week, Bright Automotive, a startup based in Anderson, IN, unveiled a plug-in hybrid utility van designed to travel 50 miles on half a gallon of gasoline. The company plans to start producing the Idea vehicle in large volume by the end of 2012, and it hopes to sell 50,000 a year starting in 2013.
At a time when dozens of automakers are developing new hybrids and electric vehicles, Bright is notable because of its history. Its CEO, John Waters, designed the battery pack for the EV-1, GM's first electric vehicle, and the company is a spinoff from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a highly regarded nonprofit based in Boulder, CO. The institute is famous for proposing in the mid-1990s to radically change the design of cars to make them more efficient. The Idea is the partial realization of its Hypercar concept, a hybrid vehicle that would use as little as one-fifth the amount of fuel that today's vehicles use. It does so by combining a hybrid of gas and electric propulsion (and eventually fuel cells instead of the gas engine) with lightweight composite materials, an aerodynamic design, and more efficient electronic accessories. The Rocky Mountain Institute had started another company to develop the Hypercar, but that vehicle never made it into production.
Bright thinks that its new business model, which involves selling vehicles to commercial and government fleets rather than to the public, could help make things different this time. Fleet customers look at the total cost of ownership, Waters says, not just the up-front cost, which is higher for plug-in hybrids, since they incorporated both a gas engine and an electric motor and also require a costly battery pack. He says that over the life of the vehicle, fuel savings will make up for the higher initial cost. Several potential customers have already signed letters of intent to purchase the vehicle once it's in mass production, says Lyle Shuey, Bright's vice president of marketing and sales. The van was designed in cooperation with a number of potential customers, including Duke Energy--an investor in Bright--and Cox Communications.
Recent government support for more efficient vehicles could also help the company succeed. Bright is applying for $450 million in government loans to scale up production. Other incentives, such as tax credits for plug-in hybrids in the stimulus package will also help. "Obama's emphasis on the electrification of the vehicle makes this the perfect time to be in the industry," says Evan House, the company's vice president for advanced battery engineering.
Like the Hypercar, the Idea will be lightweight and aerodynamic, although the design doesn't quite go to the extremes of the original concept. For example, rather than using a carbon-composite frame, it uses a metal one, although it's made of aluminum instead of steel to reduce weight, and the designers have incorporated composites elsewhere in the vehicle. The van weighs 1,500 pounds less than conventional vehicles of its size, the company says. Reducing that amount of weight reduces the size of the battery pack needed for the vehicle's 30-mile electric range, which also reduces the overall cost of the vehicle, House says.
The planned plug-in hybrid car is at the core of the automaker's attempt to reinvent itself. But will the car be a commercial success?
The new Prius is designed so that its battery pack can be swapped out for a plug-in lithium-ion battery.
A new lithium-ion battery from A123 Systems could help electric cars and hybrids come to dominate the roads.
What's the cost ? ? The pricing is very very important.
SANDEEP G BULGANNAWAR, Bangalore , INDIA.
Video explains the need for PHEV PSV's.
http://www.sustainabilitymedia.com/blog/02009/mar/12/calcars-part-pbs-special-energy/
Video explains the need for PHEV PSV's.
I personally would love the van for my video production business!
While it is a great idea to reduce gas usage and help the environment, the bottom line is the bottom line; what is the total cost of ownership? A vehicle that saves money on fuel but costs twice as much as one that gets maybe 1/2 the mpg will not catch on with the biz community. If the time to pay back exceeds normal usable life span of the vehicle, nobody but a hardcore environmental group or gov agency will buy one. Also if we are only substituting coal fired electricity for gasoline powered ICE is that really any better? What happen to the hydraulic hybrid or the flywheel battery?
That said good work RMI!
100 Mpg "Plug-in" When did electricity become free?
Well it's good to see advertising hype is alive and well. I mean a headline like 100-MILES PER GALLON is bound to make anyone read more. It's a shame that the vehicle can NOT do 100 miles on a gallon but that is beside the point huh… . How can they claim that a vehicle can do 100 miles per "Gallon" when over half of that mileage is from a battery that you plug in? The story actually says quote,
"The vehicle can travel 50 miles between battery charges using half a gallon of gas (equivalent to 100 miles per gallon)."
Equivalent to? By what kind of math?
The van did not go 100 miles it went 50 and 30 of that was electric. Can they not add? 50 miles between "battery charges" with an admitted 30 miles range per charge leaves 20 miles actually traveled on that half gallon of gas which is 20 miles per "HALF" gallon of gas. That is 40… get it 40 MPG period.
The story says next quote " But if it has to go further between charges, it uses more gasoline--for example, traveling 70 miles takes one gallon of gasoline.
So 30 miles range on the battery and 40 on one gallon of gas is… not much of an improvement.
Now add the cost of charging the batteries, which they neglect to mention or add into the miles traveled and what do you get in MPD "Miles per dollar"?
One other thing not mentioned at all is the load the van will be carrying. Any service van I have ever seen has around 500 pounds of tools in it to start and a driver.
I think a better way to represent a gas/electric hybrid vehicle would be MPD "miles per dollar" which would factor in both energy supplies instead of making it look like electricity is free.
;-)
Re: 100 Mpg "Plug-in" When did electricity become free?
Eletricity is never free, it is however quite a bit cheaper then gasoline. At 8kw for the 30 mile range, the overnight cost would be about $.80 vs the $2.50/gallon gasoline plus average for 2009 in California. That is a savings right there. The big deal is the extended range using electricity. If we deployed 100% Phev-40's, US oil consumption would drop 51%, with a 5/6 drop in US oil imports and their associated P&I costs. At $40/bbl, that would be about $700 million dollars a day in savings. The financial picture is a wee bit more complicated then you are making it out to be.
Re: 100 Mpg "Plug-in" When did electricity become free?
You are correct, electricity is very cheap compared to the price of gasoline but making the claim that this vehicle gets 100 MPH is still wrong. It will not go 100 miles on a full charge and one gallon of gas. And when you add the day to day weight that service vans will carry the range will be even less.
I will grant you that using batteries and ultra-capacitors to extend the range of a gas motor by regenerative braking and/or using the electric motor in a way that helps the gas motor run more efficiently overall is a very good idea. But No matter how you look at it the van will only go 70 miles on a full charge and one gallon of gas. So where is the 100-MPG claim coming from? Anything we do to drop the demand for foreign oil is a good idea but making outrageous claims is not. A lot of people tend to trust advertising and when they get one of those vans and try as they may to get even close to 100-MPG they will get discouraged and shy away from Hybrids in the future.
It’s the same idiotic statements the other posters video link is claiming by adding a battery to a hybrid to extend the range and up the MPG. HOW does a charged battery make a gas motors efficiency better? When you add weight (in the form of an extra battery) to a Hybrid the actual "Gas" mileage goes down because of the extra weight not up. Sure the range is better than is was because you have more battery capacity. Duh…
I can get 60 miles, using no gas what so ever in a purely electric vehicle and save even more on having to buy NO crude oil at all. My daily commute is 21 miles one way and anything I need for my day to day living is on the way to or from work. Even on my busiest days I don't travel over 60 miles so what is the point in using gas motors at all? Also it costs about $1.75 to charge overnight. And I will also say that 60 miles is to full battery depletion. In a full electric vehicle that is not a good idea if you want the batteries to last any significantly long period of time. In any given day I would do 30 miles between charges.
I will make no claims about financial pictures in general or specific as they are NOT my strong points and saying MPD was a bad choice of words on my part. But I hope you see my point. Yes the extended range is a very big deal and if we converted more vehicles to full battery power US oil consumption would drop to what %? I don't know how much we actually buy to fire our power plants and so on but I understand your statement.
Remember way back when, gas motors were noisy, stinky and very very inefficient like around 1900 or so. How far have we come in redesigning those engines to be smaller more powerful and more efficient. Now think of what would happen if we did the same with battery technology, where do you think gas engines would be then? And who stands to loose the most money if we stop using gas? From what I see it is the same people who are pushing the Hybrids. How far do you actually travel in a normal day? Ask yourself that question and then think. Yes it is convenient to fill up once a week and then not have to worry about it till the needle points to E. But going plug-in hybrid means you have to fill up as well as plug in. Would it not be more convenient to just plug in?
How about a small electric commuter car for the day to day work and errands and then a family van for that weekend trip to grandma's house in the country. Most families have more than one car anyway and I don't know bout you but I count one person to a car far more often during my morning commute than not.
I never hear mention of a small gasoline powered turbine engines in hybrids. Does this make energy sense? Are they more efficient that internal combustion engines?
Would it work for the cruising speeds of a hybrid vehicle, or perhaps as a generator of power for electric motors driving the wheels.
The Volt uses the battery alone for the first (hopefully) 40 miles and then electricity generated by the ICE. The ICE does not charge the battery. Battery charging by the ICE or regen braking is incidental. No one outside of GM has driven the car on the ICE.
We need to start examining the use of small trailers added to small cars. Most small cars are not designed to pull anything. A trailer can add a lot of utility to a small vehicle. Hauling modest family loads of all kinds, camping and recreational gear, etc. This would greatly lessen the need for larger vans and pickup trucks. Another use would be to haul batteries for long trips. The wiring could go directly to and from the car.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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mfolbe
48 Comments
safety
There is nothing in the article about safety. How would this "lightweight" car do when it gets hit by a "regular" van or suv?
Reply