In a huge move towards becoming more electric vehicle focused, GM has decided to enter into a partnership with Indiana-based electric vehicle company Bright Automotive. ... GM will give Bright Automotive $5 million to help kick start production of the plug-in hybrid van which Bright has dubbed the "Idea." GM will receive a minority stake in Bright.

"With this deal, Bright gets financial support that puts us on the fast-track toward mass production of the Idea. And perhaps just as importantly, we gain a strategic partner that is a world leader in electrification," said Bright Automotive CEO Reuben Munger.

By Rich Smith

Is General Motors serious about electric cars?

Believers in the Electric Vehicle Revolution cheered this week's news that, as it prepares to begin selling its Chevrolet Volt electric car to consumers, GM is also investing in Hoosier startup Bright Automotive. The companies aim to bring a plug-in gasoline/electric hybrid van to market in 2013. A van that, like the Volt, runs on batteries first (for 38 miles), then switches to a gasoline engine to generate juice for an additional 360 miles. A van that could, incidentally, blast Ford's new electric Transit Connect, "TC", van right outta the marketplace -- seeing as the TC's all-electric engine has only an 80-mile range.

So hurray for GM. In tandem with its development of an electric car "for the masses," it's now also targeting the market for electric delivery vans. But don't go storming the barricades just yet.

PC or PR?
Sure, at first glance this looks like absolutely the (b)right idea. I shudder to think how much gas gets wasted every day by delivery vans idling at the curb as their drivers dash to the door to drop off packages. Recouping those costs by buying vans you can turn off and on at the touch of a button has to sound like a no-brainer to the accountants at FedEx and UPS.

Indeed, we know both companies are already investing in the concept. We also know that companies ranging from battery makers like A123 and Ener1 to automakers like Toyota and Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) are placing big bets on electric vehicles becoming the wave of the future. So on the one hand, GM has fiscal rectitude on its side. On the other hand, ... as big as this idea is, I can't help but notice that the size of GM's investment in Bright is exceedingly tiny: just $5 million. That's less than what GM would pay for a minute's worth of commercial airtime during the Super Bowl. For a company that hit up U.S. investors for tens of billions of dollars, $5 million isn't an "investment" in electric vehicles. It's chump change.

Then again, maybe that's GM's brightest idea yet. At this price, it doesn't matter whether the new van succeeds or not. GM's bought itself some good PR, at a very good price. ["buying time" ... while it hopes for a Republican "do nothing" Congress, if not White House, to stop the progress and "let the corporate world do absolutely noting till it is too late, and the economy crashes even harder and permanently.]