Archive for May, 2008

by Kate Carter

Former MindSpring president brings knowledge and know-how to electric-car company opportunity for the company: the skyrocketing price of oil, the groundswell of concern about climate change and “the ongoing political outrage” about the country’s oil-centric foreign policy. RTEV was originally founded in 2000 as Ruff & Tuff Products, a manufacturer of electric golf carts and accessories. When Ruff & Tuff executive Bo Huff, now RTEV’s president, turned to McQuary’s merchant banking firm Effis, McQuary, Stanley and Associates for money, McQuary was intrigued.

“As I began researching the industry, I realized that the golf cart industry is an oligarchy comprised of three manufacturers that have the market share and there is no room for a competitor,” said McQuary. So he dug deeper. He watched the documentary ‘Who Killed the Electric Car,” and saw major parallels between how much people loved their electric cars and how much people loved the Internet during the early days of MindSpring and EarthLink.

“The only time I’d ever seen that much passion in a product was in the very early days of MindSpring, when we’d get people on the Internet for the first time and they’d say, ‘This is unbelievable. You guys aren’t charging enough. I’ve gotten 10 of my neighbors to sign up.’” The way McQuary sees the electric vehicle opportunity is this: There are plenty of companies making lowend electric golf carts, and plenty of companies – like Tesla Motors – making high-end electric sports cars that go for $100,000.

But there is a gap in the middle that McQuary said will be filled by major U.S. automakers. And by RTEV.

“When I was at MindSpring, we were able to be successful going up against AT&T and BellSouth,” said McQuary. “We had a singular obsession with making the customers happy and we didn’t have a lot of corporate baggage about how things had been done in the past” Just like MindSpring did well against the big corporations, he thinks RTEV will be able to compete against large car companies for a healthy portion of the midlevel electric vehicle business.

RTEV will not be the only company to successfully compete in the middle market against giant automobile manufacturers, McQuary said. Miles Motors of Santa Monica, Ca., for example, is on the same track as RTEV, and there is room for more. On the fast track- In the short term, McQuary does not see electric cars as a replacement for gas-powered cars, but as a family’s second car for shorter trips on roads with lower speed limits. But the industry is quickly revving up: RTEV will unveil auto-shaped, low-speed electric vehicles in 2009, and full-speed, full-size electric vehicles the following year.

The growth numbers, McQuary says, should be strong. Ruff & Tuff became RTEV in January 2007, and sales that year registered $7.8 million. McQuary estimates 50 percent growth for RTEV – which has 25 employees – in 2008, and 50 percent growth for at least 2009 and 2010. RTEV’s dealers, spread around the country, have increased from 30 to about 75 in just five months.

Crossing industries
Lance Weatherby, founder of strategic consulting firm The Enfuse Group Inc. and a venture catalyst at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center, worked at Mobil Corp. and then MindSpring and EarthLink with McQuary. As an investor in RTEV, Weatherby is confident that his friend’s leadership skills can translate across industries.

“The one thing about Mike is he will do whatever it takes to get the job done, and because of that, people are willing to do it, too,” he said. He also said McQuary is deft at different types of leadership: “He has an interesting ability to do very outward types of activities, in terms of getting a company known or not known. And he can be Mr. Inside, too.” Weatherby said that at MindSpring and EarthLink, McQuary was able to take strategic objectives and drive them down into measurable objectives for every person in the company. “I think he has shown he has the ability to compete against really big players and do it successfully,” he said. “I’m looking at the AT&T logo – we very much kicked their butt back then.”

Richard Franza, department chair for Management and Entrepreneurship at Kennesaw State University’s Michael J. Coles College of Business, said C-level job skills are quite translatable from industry to industry. McQuary doesn’t view delving into a new industry as an obstacle. “It would be much more difficult if we didn’t have the Internet,” he said. “But there is very little excuse of not becoming a student of whatever industry you’re involved with. You just have to put in the time and hours to learn about it.”

by Charlie Vick for The Northside Neighbor

Mike McQuary wants to resurrect the all-electric automobile. The Buckhead resident and former founder of Internet service provider MindSpring is now the CEO of RTEV, a Midtown-based company dedicated to designing and producing electric vehicles.

For now, the company has a range of vehicles which largely resemble golf carts, but McQuary said the company’s focus is presenting a number of vehicles, culminating in a full-sized electric car by 2010 which tops out at 60 mph and has a range of about 100 miles per charge.

The car won’t replace the need for a regular automobile, but McQuary indicated the car would be a supplement for the American driver. One could keep a regular car for trips and use an electric vehicle for errands and driving around town.

The CEO said the idea came from watching the documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” What struck him was the number of people who said they loved their electric vehicles (EVs).

“What people use the word ‘love’ for their car? I have a hard time saying that about my kids sometimes,” McQuary said as the audience laughed.

Concept cars were unveiled at Georgia Tech May 6. RTEV had taken micro-compact cars, popular in Asian markets, and stripped out the gas combustion engines, adding in electric motors and batteries.

Though the vehicles won’t win a drag race, McQuary said he’d used a compact electric van to take his children to school for the last six months.

“This isn’t going to be an oddity,” McQuary said. “This is going to be something lots and lots of people drive.”

RTEV’s battery units are maintenance free and environmentally safe, according to McQuary. They use a lithium iron phosphate gel, rather than traditional wet batteries and less prone to overheating than lithium ion batteries. The CEO said RTEV batteries are safe enough to mail through the U.S. Postal Service.

McQuary said he hoped the company’s concept cars would be a glimpse of the future – the idea is to have a different engine and eco-friendly fuel, but the same experience driving around town, making tomorrow both novel and familiar.

Melissa Stiers
Producer/ Radio Reporter
Georgia Public Broadcasting
listen

“The newly named RTEV Inc., which has sold all-electric recreational vehicles for several years, is launching a new unit called Wheego that will focus on street-legal vehicles in the U.S. Ruff & Tuff Products, the former name of the company, will now operate as a separate unit and continue to market utility vehicles.

The first Wheego products, which are due this fall, will be electric scooters and mopeds. They will be followed in 2009 by “auto-shaped” low-speed electric vehicles that can run on roads with posted speed limits of 35 mph or less. Unlike the current lineup of recreational vehicles, the new models will have enclosed passenger compartments. By 2010, RTEV hopes to launch on-highway models capable of speeds up to 60 mph and a driving range of 100 miles on a single charge. It envisions a lineup that includes a minivan, a two-seater and a pickup-type vehicle; base prices are expected to begin at
less than $30,000.

The privately held Atlanta-based company plans to modify existing vehicle platforms and outsource production to China, with final assembly completed in the U.S. RTEV currently is testing its electric drivetrain technology in a Suzuki minivan and is talking with several potential partners in China, India and South Korea. For its current recreational vehicles, RTEV is sourcing sealed absorbed-glass-mat
(AGM) dry cell batteries from Canada’s Discover-Energy. It eventually expects to switch to a lithium-iron-phosphate chemistry, which the company believes is more promising than lithium-ion units. RTEV currently is working with several battery suppliers in China to develop next-generation technology.

RTEV has about two dozen employees. The company is headed by CEO Mike McQuary, an entrepreneur who previously headed Internet service providers MindSpring and EarthLink. He joined RTEV last year.

Ruff & Tuff Products introduced its first line of electric vehicles in 2005 after five years of development and testing. It sold nearly 1,000 such vehicles last year.”

ATLANTA (May 6, 2008) – RTEV, one of the first electric vehicle (EV) companies to deliver affordable electric LSVs (Low Speed Vehicles), will celebrate its official launch at Georgia Tech on May 6, 2008.   The event, to be held at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Convention Center from 10am-12pm, will feature a short presentation and Q&A followed by EV test drives.

Electric Vehicle Adoption Fueled By Rising Gas Prices, Increased Environmental Awareness and Technological Advancements
The electric vehicle industry is on the cusp of major growth due to technological advances in the batteries and chargers used to power them, rising gasoline prices, increasing awareness and concern over global warming trends, and a desire to lessen U.S. dependency on foreign oil and its political implications.
Consumers are increasingly making more green-conscious buying decisions. “People are looking at their vehicles and looking at their drive cycles and saying ‘Maybe I can use a battery EV in a way that makes a lot of sense’,” said Brian Wynne of the Electric Drive Transportation Association.

“There is a perfect storm of macro-events that are causing the American public to take personal inventory of their habits across a wide spectrum which includes personal transportation, and RTEV is entering the marketplace at this pivotal time,” said CEO Mike McQuary, serial entrepreneur and the ex-president of internet service providers MindSpring and EarthLink. “The long-held assumption has been that EVs are quirky and impractical for everyday life, and are of interest to only a small group of tree huggers.  The more recent state of the market has been the development of vehicles that aim high—like Tesla and Fisker Automotives sports cars; and low—like NEVs and Golf Carts. Our vehicles will fill a middle market demand gap at the right time, with the right vehicles and a national dealer network to provide service and support.”

RTEV is comprised of two divisions, Ruff & Tuff and Wheego.  The company currently features three recreational vehicles under its Ruff & Tuff brand—the Cruiser, the 4-wheel drive Hunter, and the Workman—all of which are easily and inexpensively converted to be street-legal Low Speed Vehicles. Low Speed Vehicles are a US Department of Transportation designation for cars that can be licensed and driven on roads that have speed limits of 35 MPH and less. Ruff and Tuff sales totaled nearly 1,000 vehicles in 2007 through its growing national dealer network.  In Q3 2008 RTEV will introduce a line of electric scooters and bicycles under the Wheego brand, to be followed by the auto shaped LSVs in 2009, and full-size, full-speed electric vehicles in 2010.

RTEV is led by an experienced management team which transformed the company from a golf car aftermarket accessory company to a full-line Electric Vehicle business.  The team includes McQuary, who joined the company in 2007; President Bo Huff, who brings twenty-one years of experience in the electric car industry and introduced the first line of Ruff & Tuff Electric Vehicles in 2005; Vice President of Sales Charles Herbert; and Vice President of Engineering and Product Development Preston Wrenn.

RTEV: Advanced Technology Proponent
Founded as Ruff & Tuff Products in 2000, RTEV introduced its first line of electric vehicles in 2005 after five years of exhaustive design, engineering, and testing.  The company distinguishes itself from other electric vehicles currently on the market with its long running dry cell sealed (AGM) batteries, which require no maintenance and will not harm the environment. Its vehicles feature on board high tech chargers and battery systems that can be upgraded to travel up to 70 miles on a single charge—and plug in for a recharge on any standard home 110 volt electrical outlet.