Automotive Start-Up Aims to Build 100 MPG Hybrid Truck

Detroit's chaos and America's summer bout with $4-a-gallon gasoline have opened the way for a wave of automotive innovators like John Waters.

Primed to revive the state's ailing auto economy, the former General Motors engineer is the chief executive officer of Bright Automotive, an obscure Anderson startup whose 20 employees are busy on one job: creating a car company.

Led by Chrysler, GM and Delphi veterans, Bright is designing a 100-mile-per-gallon light truck assisted by electric power stored on the vehicle in a massive lithium-ion battery recharged from a wall socket. The goal: Get an assembly line going by 2012 for mass production of a high-tech truck known as a plug-in hybrid.

"We are primarily focused on America's entry into this technology," Waters said. "We want to leverage U.S. industry, U.S. workers, U.S. science."

No one has launched a mass-market car company in America and managed to stay in business for long since the men named Chevrolet, Chrysler and Ford strode Detroit before World War I.

But the automakers' recent meltdown has a new crowd of engineers dreaming about capitalizing on a new breed of electric cars. If Bright succeeds, Indiana's ailing auto sector could revive on high-tech cars and components. But analysts say a bewildering maze stands in front of Indiana.

With the incoming Obama administration expected to pour billions of dollars into a new generation of fuel-efficient cars, lone engineers and companies big and small -- including Ford, Chrysler and GM -- are angling for the federal auto money.

Interest among entrepreneurs soared after the subprime mess set off the credit crisis and dried up venture capital. Bright now is looking for cash in Washington. And just this week, 14 corporations including 3M Corp. and Johnson Controls disclosed they intend to form a coalition that would seek $1 billion in federal cash to develop what would be the heart of the electric car -- the lithium-ion battery.

Bright is not part of that coalition, although the venture's success could ensure the nation does not have to rely on imported batteries. However, the 3M-JCI venture's success carries a commercial risk for Indiana.

Now, the four sources for lithium-ion batteries are China, Japan, South Korea -- and Indiana. If the 3M-JCI coalition succeeds, it could set back EnerDel, an Indianapolis battery business created in 2004 by New York investor Ener1 and auto-parts giant Delphi. A former GM division, Delphi's prowess included engineering centers in Anderson, Indianapolis and Kokomo for batteries, electronic controls and electric-motor technology.

The only U.S. producer of lithium-ion car batteries, EnerDel is ramping up to make batteries for export to Europe, though the global credit crisis stranded its largest customer. On Monday, electric-car maker Think Global said it ran out of money and stopped its assembly line in Oslo, Norway.

"We have often discussed capacity as being the central issue to electric drive," said Ener1 Chief Executive Charles Gassenheimer. "We are happy to see others joining Ener1's commitment to its U.S. supply of the battery."

With federal auto tech money on the horizon, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh has set a news conference at 1 p.m. today in Indianapolis to discuss how Indiana companies can proceed.

On Monday, the mayors of Kokomo and Marion are set to lead mayors and government officials from across the state in a discussion in Indianapolis on how their cities can survive if Chrysler, Ford and GM go bankrupt.

In other years, Bright might have been a footnote in history. These days it stands out. After all, it's Indiana's only company in position to make electric cars.

"I think what this group is capable of doing is looking at the automobile from a systems-engineering perspective. It is not driven from a traditional perspective," said Mike Hudson, a former General Motors Allison engineering director in Indianapolis who now heads iPower, an Anderson maker of power-generation units. "They're trying to synthesize the solution rather than start off from the perspective of a traditional auto platform."

If it takes off, Bright would buy all its auto parts and could spur the Indiana electrical-parts makers burdened now by Detroit's decline.

Bright has completed its research and development and is ready to make vehicles, Waters said. All it needs is the cash necessary to build a plant.

"We see ourselves as an execution play as opposed to an innovation play," said Waters, who credits his GM experience for Bright's quick gear-up.

It is not widely remembered in Indianapolis, but 15 years ago, GM engineers in the city led the race to beat Toyota to market in California with an electric vehicle. GM won. Although GM later sidelined the car, called the EV1, its legacy is a pool of Indiana engineers schooled in electric-car technology -- including Waters.

He was a GM Delco Remy designer working in what is now EnerDel's Hague Road battery plant. Later, Waters went to EnerDel, helped set up the battery venture, and then became a transportation researcher in the Colorado think tank Rocky Mountain Institute, where he came across hedge fund manager Reuben Munger, an electric-car proponent.

They formed Bright, and Waters moved back to Anderson to rejoin the pool of electric-car engineers.

"There's no question we had the leadership position in innovation," he said. "We don't want to give it up."
http://www.indystar.com/article/20081219/BUSINESS/812190366