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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They’ve also used oil money to buy Russian weapons.

 

The countries of OPEC

You wouldn’t think that global politics would have a place in an auto blog. But today I’m going there and here’s why:

We drive cars. Cars need gas. Gas comes from oil. And oil comes from OPEC.

The political firestorm that is OPEC currently comprises of 12 countries (The U.S. is not one of them). Here’s a brief look into how two of them use oil money:

Venezuela: funds their socialist government and suppresses opposition. They’ve also used oil money to buy Russian weapons.

Iran: they have the second largest oil reserves in the world, so it’s no wonder economic sanctions have little effect. They make their money in oil, and use that money to help spread their influence through Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel.

Many OPEC countries actually build their budgets based on the price of oil. If prices begin to fall below a predetermined level, OPEC can step in and decide to decrease production, thus increasing prices and fuelling economies. Nothing puts the economic squeeze on an OPEC country more than a cheap barrel of oil.

Now that prices are hovering around $70 per barrel, OPEC countries are feeling that pinch. And just yesterday, OPEC announced they would cut production by at least 1 million barrels per day. As a result, prices should increase enough to ease the economic pressure on countries like Venezuela. At least for a while.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be controlled and I feel like OPEC countries are the worldwide equivalent to 6^th grade bullies. The best way to defeat them is to just stop giving them money.

I want to see an end to violence in the Mid East. I want to see terrorist groups dissolved. I want people living in Venezuela to choose how and where to live. I DON’T want to see these countries obliterated, I just want to see their economies crumble, followed by OPEC.  

Since OPEC countries are dependent on high oil prices, it’s not war in Iraq that is going to bring peace to the region.

It’s refusing to buy that region’s oil.

And that means using as little gas as possible until we can supply and sustain our own energy needs.

What are your thoughts on OPEC?

-tgriffith

 

 

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