Finally, a truck that gets 100 mpg!

Okay, that 100-mpg number is partly marketing, but still it’s something to get excited about.

Bright Automotive is a mostly unknown car company based in Indiana. Their CEO is the guy who developed the battery pack for GM’s infamous EV1, the first production electric car that some say was prematurely put down.

So Bright is a company with some credibility behind them, and this week they unveiled their IDEA (Yes, it’s called the Bright IDEA. Stop laughing.) on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. 

Here’s the scoop on the IDEA:

• It’s powered by a hybrid electric system and drives for the first 30 miles on pure electricity. After that, an electric/gas engine takes over. For the first 50 miles of driving, the IDEA is said to use half a gallon of gas, the equivalent of 100 mpg.
• Bright hopes the IDEA will be available in 2013 to commercial customers. It will not be offered as a consumer vehicle.
•  Bright says they will create about 5,000 jobs when they begin producing 50,000 vehicles per year by the end of 2012.

I think marketing the IDEA for commercial uses is absolutely brilliant. Imagine all the delivery trucks in America that are getting 9 miles per gallon. Replace them with a van like the IDEA and *boom*, global warming is solved.

Okay, that might be a bit too high an expectation for the IDEA, but it’s a step in the right direction and another example of how the world’s auto industry will evolve in the coming years.

Do you think Bright has a great IDEA, or will it turn out to be nothing more than hype?

-tgriffith

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