Archive for July, 2009

Fast Company
By Chris Dannen
July 21, 2009

Bill Reinert hates the plug-in electric car. He hates ethanol too. And what Bill Reinert hates matters to every car-buying American: he’s Toyota’s national sales manager and in-house energy sage, and he knows his stuff. But is he too smart for Toyota’s good?

At a future-car panel in Southern California last week, he was quoted as calling ethanol “the dumbest kid in school” and saying that plug-in electrics “just aren’t plausible right now” because of their wimpy 70 to 100 mile range. (“How many of your friends are going to buy that car?” he said of Shai Agassi’s electric RAV4.)

Reinert’s problem–and by extension, Toyota’s–is that he’s right. As I’ve written, even sustainable, power-dense biofuels that aren’t corn-based can’t scale anywhere near large enough to eclipse our need for fossil fuels, and 100 miles is 1/3 of the range we’ve come to expect from cars. The only electric cars that seem to have a fighting chance at pleasing over-expectant buyers are ultra-cheap, purpose-built city cars like the Wheego Whip (below)–and even those, as Reinert notes, still use electricity that is mostly generated with coal power. Companies like Tesla, which just opened its first East Coast dealership in New York, are much too sanguine about their Silicon Valley business models, says Reinert; in mass-market car sales, people want the most for the least.

So what’s a car company to do? Toyota’s mission with Reinert at the helm is to get as many people as possible into 50 mpg cars like the Prius while in the mean time developing ultra-sustainable fuel cell technology. But part of the appeal of the plug-in electric is the plug itself: we already have an electricity infrastructure that can charge cars, sustainably or not. By outsmarting the problem and working towards a fuel-cell future, Toyota and Reinert may end up outsmarting the consumer.

Don’t believe me? Take the case of Japanese cell phone makers Panasonic, Sharp and NEC, the subject of an article in yesterday’s The New York Times. The phones they produce for their domestic customers in Japan stream digital TV, act as RFID credit cards, surf the Internet at 4G speeds and generally behave as if they’re about a decade ahead of Western cell phones, iPhone and Blackberry included. But as The Times observes, “Japanese cell-phone makers were a little too clever”: by building high-end technology that required proprietary networks, they fenced out the global market that was moving more slowly. Now they’re scrambling to backwards-engineer phones that can work on American and European networks. (Japanese phones, pictured below. Courtesy of NYTimes.com)

Should Toyota (or other car makers) not heed the lesson, they’ll find themselves in a similar position. As Kevin Czinger, CEO of Coda Automotive, another electric car company, recently explained to me, the cost of retrofitting California’s rest stops to include electric car charging stations would register only in the low millions–but building safe, efficacious hydrogen filling stations in that same state would cost more by a factor of ten (or about $126 million just for California, according to one estimate. When you’re dealing with states that have powerful environmental mandates but not much cash to back them up–witness the insolvency of states like California and New York–the stage is hardly set for a disruptive technology like hydrogen fuel to succeed. Should Toyota not give the electric car its due diligence, they may find themselves missing out on a very lucrative stop-gap product, and their #1 spot in jeopardy.

Mother Nature Network
By Jim Motavalli
July 6, 2009

These are the companies with the right mix of the right stuff — business acumen, a great plug-in product and a marketing plan. Don’t be surprised if at least one of these companies becomes as big as (or bigger than) General Motors.

We’re in Silicon Valley, and the setting is a nondescript industrial park. The office looks like all the rest, though it invariably has a garage attached to it. This is the scene for numerous electric vehicle (EV) startups, many of them headed by California tech refugees. I hear from them nearly every day now. It’s an entrepreneurial field day not seen since, well, the tech startups of the 1990s—which took place in exactly the same place.

The cast of characters and their ranking changes daily, but here is my listing of the eight that I think—right now—are most likely to make it (in roughly descending order):

Tesla Motors. What’s not to like about the ultra-sexy Tesla Roadster, which reaches 60 mph in 3.9 seconds on battery power alone? Well, there is that $109,000 price, but believe it or not it took relentless expense-cutting to get the materials cost down from $140,000 to the $80,000 it is now. So Tesla, which will introduce its four-door Model S in 2011, is finally poised to make money. “Combined with a steady production volume of 20 to 30 per week in the third quarter this year and a good take-up rate of the higher-priced Roadster Sport,” CEO Elon Musk said in June, “we expect to cross over into profitability next month.”

There’s also the $465 million that Tesla got through the federal advanced technology loan program, which will be used to produce the Model S, and also to build a powertrain plant in California.

Bright Automotive. Bright doesn’t do sexy. Its vehicle is a plug-in hybrid panel van, intended for fleet use. Headed by John Waters, the guy who designed the battery pack for the General Motors EV-1 electric car, Bright has laser-like focus on just the fleet market, and is talking to big players like Coca-Cola. Launched just last year, the Bright team built its vehicle from the ground up in a year. On the road, the Bright Idea (which I have not yet seen) achieves a reported 100-mpg equivalent. Production is set to begin in 2012, with a target of 50,000 annually, but that’s pretty ambitious.

Brammo. There’s something about a distribution deal with Best Buy that gets people to take you seriously. This is a cool-looking electric motorcycle that can be fixed by the Geek Squad. The $12,000 Enertia, which has a lightweight carbon-fiber frame carrying lithium-iron-phospate batteries, weighs just 280 pounds. Fast it isn’t, with a top speed of 50 mph from its 18-horsepower electric motor, but Brammo is claiming the equivalent of 300 mpg. It recharges in three hours on regular house current. CEO Craig Bramscher says, “What we’re selling is a lot closer to consumer electronics than to transportation.” I second that emotion.

Fisker Automotive. German-born Henrik Fisker is an industry veteran who knows how to create a business plan, in this case to finance the 2010 Karma, a Tesla-rivaling four-seat plug-in hybrid exotic with a 50-mile range on its battery pack, and the fuel economy equivalent of 100-mpg once the engine kicks in. The car, to be built in Finland, will sell for $87,900. If it’s a Tesla-like tiger on the road (I haven’t driven it) the Karma will have a good chance in the marketplace. Fisker thinks it will be producing 15,000 annually, and again that’s a big number. (Tesla has only delivered 500 cars so far.) Deposits are $5,000, but if you want the more-exclusive Karma S convertible that will be $25,000 please.

BYD. The fact that financier Warren Buffett bought into this Chinese company (10 percent for $230 million) caused a lot of people to sit up and take notice. And when BYD got a plug-in hybrid car on the market before any other world manufacturer, they noticed even more. I saw the car at the Detroit Auto Show, and the F3DM is not exactly showy, but on the other hand it can reportedly go 60 miles on a charge, and the one-liter gas engine recharges on the fly. BYD says it will come to the U.S. in 2011. BYD is not technically a startup, but cars are a relatively recent development for this world-leading battery company.

Think Global. This Norwegian company has had a fascinating history. From a startup in Norway it went to becoming part of Ford, but the automaker sold out in the 1990s. The company has had serious cash flow problems, but is reportedly soon to announce a reorganization plan that will include U.S. sales. Think’ major asset is a lightweight, plastic-bodied electric car with sodium or lithium-ion batteries (from a variety of manufacturers, including U.S.-based Ener1) that it has already started delivering in Europe. According to its website, “Think is getting closer to resuming production of the Think City and to honoring its commitment to start delivering vehicles to customers before the end of the year. Think’s customers are eagerly awaiting their new Think EV in cities across Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria and Spain.” Think is technically not a start-up either, but for the few cars it has ever sold its re-launch certainly counts as one.

Coda. I drove a Coda in Greenwich, Connecticut recently, my first time behind the wheel of a Chinese-made car. Coda’s Corolla-sized car is based on the Saibao sedan, with a big battery pack built by the Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Company. Porsche Design Studio gave it a makeover (necessary, if the $45,000 asking price is to find buyers). The Coda reaches 60 mph in less than 11 seconds, is speed-governed at 80 mph, and has 100-mile range. CEO Kevin Czinger is a smart player, with a long business resume, and his car has cemented strong relationships with Chinese and European supplier that should make the car more than the sum of its parts. The plan is to sell 2,700 in 2010, and then ramp up to a full production capacity of 20,000 annually.

Wheego. This Atlanta-based startup makes the whimsically named Wheego Whip, a low-speed vehicle that’s not allowed on roads with speed limits of 35 mph or more. Unlike other LSVs, this $19,000 entry with 55 miles of range is fully finished, with four-wheel discs, air conditioning, a stereo and other amenities that take it beyond golf-cart status. There are reportedly 40,000 LSVs on American roads, but Wheego will soon introduce a fully road-worthy EV and that’s when the company could really become a player. CEO Mike McQuary is, like Elon Musk at Tesla, a former investor who liked what he saw. “The Whip is the best electric car in the world,” he says.

Fast Company
By Chris Dannen
July 6, 2009

In the race to build the first affordable electric car, one company is taking an unusual approach: they’re not treating it as a race at all. “We don’t want to be the first, or the biggest. We just want to be the best,” says Mike McQuary, CEO of Wheego electric vehicles .

The Atlanta-based startup will begin selling its first electric vehicle, a small, functional buggy called the Whip, this August in a handful of dealerships around the country. It’ll cost around $19,000, minus a newly-revised $7,500 tax credit just announced by the IRS. Despite its price, the Whip is up against a bevy of capable competitors: fellow startups like Tesla, Coda and Zap, to say nothing of the big boys Nissan, GM, Toyota and Honda.

McQuary has been here before; as the founder of MindSpring, the early Internet service provider, he faced — and withstood — crushing opposition from ISPs like AT&T, IBM and Microsoft. It was back in his MindSpring days that McQuary first came across electric cars, though he says he doesn’t have any particular predilection for vehicles. His cofounder at MindSpring, Charles Brewer, had one of the early electric RAV4’s that Toyota was test-leasing to customers around the country. Then California’s new emissions mandates were repealed, and Toyota took back Brewer’s car. It would be years before electric cars crossed McQuary’s mind again. (Below, the RAV4 EV, pilot tested in the 1990s.)

In 2000, MindSpring merged with Earthlink; three years later, McQuary left his post as CEO to found a private equity merchant bank with a college buddy. They shopped around for projects, buying a TV station and taking pitches from entrepreneurs. “Then a guy came along who wanted to start a company that would build better golf carts,” McQuary says. “We all sort of shuddered, but I went and learned about the industry.”

This is the point in the story that is supposed to birth a breakthrough — instead, it was a dead end. The golf cart market, McQuary says, is a “wonderfully managed oligopoly,” with three major companies controlling 95% of the market. “I knew there wasn’t an opportunity in the golf cart industry,” he says, “but I kept veering into research on using modified [electric] golf carts on the open road.” Memories of Brewer’s RAV4 came to mind. “I remembered that these cars had a start out of the gate, and that people were emotional and enthusiastic about them,” he says. “When I first started up MindSpring, I saw that kind of emotional expression. I know that consumer voice, and I thought: I know how to reach and appeal to that passionate base of early adopters.”

The lightbulb flickered until he saw the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car. The technology, the political climate, and what McQuary calls the “macroawareness” over dependence on foreign oil all convinced him that now was the time to garner what he had learned and start something. “I knew I could make a great electric car, and that consumers would buy it.”

The result of his inspiration was RTEV, an electric vehicle company that got its start making electric recreational and hunting vehicles. The original plan, he says, was to begin a streetcar division housed under the same umbrella company. “Then we realized about a month ago that the recreational division had very little technology overlap with the street division, and the dealer network–which is all powersports guys — didn’t have any overlap with car dealers,” he says. As of late May, Wheego was spun off to become its own entity, with McQuary at its helm.

The pair of cars that are the product of his vision — one “low-speed vehicle” or “LSV ” certified for a round-town 25MPH, and one “full-speed vehicle” capable of highway speeds — are quirky, attractive and well-priced. The Whip, the LSV, is a two-door Smart-car doppelganger that holds two people and goes about 40 or 50 miles on a charge. It gets its juice from a normal three-prong household plug, mated to a normal 110V household outlet, but it can also be hooked up to a 220V outlet for faster refills. A full charge takes six to eight hours.

The Whip is the product of an auspicious deal with Chinese car manufacturer ShuangHuan automotive, which tried (and largely failed) to launch a small, mid-priced gasoline car in Asian markets last year, only to find that the burgeoning Chinese middle class wanted bigger cars. When they were approached by McQuary and his team, they had a body and chassis ready to roll, and no one to sell it to. “We asked them to make about 85 modifications,” McQuary said of the ShuangHuan car. The first “rolling shells” of the Whip will be shipped from China to Ontario, CA by the third week in July; there, they’ll be outfitted with sealed, environmentally-sound lead acid batteries, drivetrains, and motors. After just two weeks of surgeries, they’ll go out to dealers, some of which are traditional car vendors looking for a new product to liven up sales, others of which are specialized EV-only car stores. The first production run will be between 500 and 1,000 cars. (Below, the Whip next to fellow EV the Tesla Roadster.)

The full-speed car, which is powered by a more advanced (and expensive) lithium ion phosphate battery, will go on sale in 2010. Wheego will provide a trade-in program for customers who bought a Whip, and later decided to upgrade to the yet-unnamed full speed vehicle. “We have the best electric car in the world that we’re launching,” McQuary says, touting in particular the car’s fit and finish, city-chic styling, powerful stereo and the optional A/C. “I want those early MindSpring customers to be Wheego drivers,” he says. Whether or not there are enough of those MindSpring early adopters to spread over Wheego and its competitors remains to be seen, but McQuary believes that a toe-hold in the industry is all Wheego needs to build its momentum. “If I can sell five or ten thousand cars, we’re off and running and profitable,” he says. And all environmental ideals aside, it is profitability, of course, that will decide which EVs live and die.

Venture Beat
By Camille Ricketts
July 2, 2009

Here Wheego! — Electric vehicle startup Wheego announced it will launch its two-seat, low-speed car on August 1 in hopes that its release will help raise an additional round of capital. The car is called the Whip, and its development has been supported by money from founder Mike McQuary, his private equity firm Ellis, McQuary & Stanley, Brash Music and MindSpring. The Whip differs from cars in the works at Tesla and Fisker in that it runs on lead-acid batteries instead of lithium-ion batteries — supposedly avoiding overheating issues associated with the latter. The car charges in six to eight hours and can travel 40 miles on each charge. It will retail for $18,995. With government funding and more capital, Atlanta-based Wheego says it plans to build two assembly plants in the U.S.

AutomobileMag.com
By REX ROY
July 01, 2009

In photos, you can’t tell the size of the 2009 WheeGo Whip. They look tiny — perhaps the size of a Smart ForTwo. In person, all that changes. Regardless of which powertrain is fitted under the Whip’s hood, this car is bigger than you expect.

WheeGo will have its Whip NEV (Neighborhood Electric Vehicle) on sale by the end of the summer, and expects the Whip HSV (Highway-Speed Vehicle) to be available Summer 2010.

The idea for building the Whip comes from Internet entrepreneur Mike McQuary. McQuary stands as a true believer when it comes to the electrification of personal transportation. He is directing the low-volume, low-speed Whip towards others like him. The company expects to sell 500-1,000 NEVs per year after the car goes on sale later this summer, and a similar number of HSVs when they go on sale in mid-2010. The number seems reasonable when one considers that 77,000 NEVs have been purchased by Americans in the last 10 years, according to the company.

McQuary approached the business of building electric cars practically. His concept was to apply the best available electric powertrain technology to an existing vehicle that fit the company’s ideal for what could become an electrified city car. WheeGo’s vehicle would not be a gussied up golf cart or third-world utility vehicle.

Economics were also an issue, and to make the financials plausible, WheeGo considered dozens of options and settled on a car called the Noble. China’s Shuanghuan Automobile Company markets the gas-powered Noble for domestic consumption and export.

Unlike the Smart ForTwo, the Noble is a front-engine, front-wheel-drive car. While the general shape of the Noble/Whip is familiar, it’s a foot longer than the ForTwo, and the hood/front end is significantly larger proportionally. The Noble/Whip is also four inches wider and a bit taller. Overall, this is a substantial vehicle, as can be seen in the accompanying photo where a Whip is parked next to a 2008 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen.

For WheeGo, Shuanghuan produces roller chassis; essentially complete cars with no powertrain or fuel systems. The all-steel vehicles arrive stateside with DOT compliant seats, safety belts, glass, tires, and a fully-outfitted interior.

When the chassis arrive stateside, they are trucked to an Ontario, CA assembly facility. To create the Whip NEV, an electric powertrain is installed where the gas engine would normally go. The single electric motor produces 110 lb-ft of torque and a nominal 10 horsepower with 40 peak horsepower. Sophisticated lead acid batteries (12 eight-volt advanced glass-mat sealed cells) are good for real world driving of about 40 miles.

The Whip NEV is speed limited to 25 mph or 35 mph depending on state laws for these vehicles. Charge time is about eight hours from a nearly dead battery pack. Showing a high degree of ingenuity, the motor drives the wheels through the Noble’s five-speed transmission with the linkage locked in second gear. Other gears are left out of the transmission to save weight and lower cost. Brakes are economy-car standards; discs up front, drums in the rear. Weight with the lead acid batteries is around 2500 lbs.

Whip HSVs versions get these major upgrades; a more powerful motor (55 horsepower at up to 3500 rpm), an FE-type lithium battery array, and four-wheel disc brakes with ABS. The higher energy density batteries lighten the Whip by 400 pounds. High-speed versions will be limited to approximately 60 mph. This vehicle’s expected range is over 100 miles on a single charge, meaning a typical driver might be able to go 2-3 days without a recharge.

Behind the wheel, the Whip’s interior looks like any relatively current Asian economy car (think Hyundai Accent from 2003). The seats offer good support, door panels look modern, and the equipment level is fully up to par. For example, the standard audio system is from JVC and incorporates Bluetooth and MP3 compatibility. Unlike most NEVs, the Whip comes standard with keyless entry, power door locks, power mirrors, and a fully functional HVAC system with optional air conditioning.

The cabin is exceptionally roomy with a surprisingly high seating position. Visibility is excellent. The sizable steel doors have frameless windows with rubber seals. The assembly closes with a reassuring feeling that isn’t typical for an NEV — many of which don’t even have doors. Cargo room is likewise large. The glass hatch flips up and a steel tailgate folds down. I found it curious that the seats have pockets — they must be units pulled from other vehicles Shuanghuan produces. Batteries are stored under the cargo area floor.

We drove the Whip NEV first. The powertrain is smooth, not like the jerky electric golf carts or other NEVs we’ve sampled over the years. Unlike these more primitive low-speed vehicles, the Whip’s system fully incorporates regenerative braking. The transition between acceleration, coasting, regenerative braking, and braking through the physical braking system is highly polished. WheeGo purchases a capable powertrain controller and then uses proprietary programming to help integrate the motor/generator, batteries, and braking system.

Power is adequate for an around-town car with a limited top speed. Acceleration is quick enough to get you across a street without worrying about cross traffic, but you won’t win any drag races. The steering is electrically assisted and has good effort but not any feel. For planned communities and vacation destinations such as Destin, Florida, the Whip NEV could be an excellent transportation alternative.

Switching over to the Whip HSV, it’s important to note that production version is still months away, so we sampled an early prototype. It felt much the same as the NEV, just faster. At higher speeds, wind noise wasn’t an issue, demonstrating effective door and window sealing. Road noise did increase with speed, but not to an objectionable level. Over 50 mph, the Whip HSV continued to feel like a real car. This is not an insignificant observation for a vehicle in this category, and one that comes from such humble origins.

These humble origins reveal themselves in the suspension tuning. Designed for a vehicle weight of just 1800 pounds, with batteries, both Whips carry more tonnage than the gas-powered Noble. The suspensions also have long travel to cope with China’s notoriously poor roads.

Both versions of the Whip would benefit from additional suspension tuning. The ride was too bouncy and understeer causes the tires to howl at the first hint of lateral gs. The understeer is surprising given the Whip’s large radial tires that measure P195/50R15. With these tires, the Whip should have plenty of mechanical grip, and therefore feel sportier. It doesn’t feel sporty at all. These ride issues must be solved before NEVs and HSVs like the Whip will be considered as a household’s second or third vehicle.

The low-speed Whip goes on sale later this year at an expected price of under $20,000. This is real-car money even with the 10-percent Federal tax credit for NEVs. Representatives from WheeGo know that buyers could buy a Smart ForTwo (or almost two Nissan Versas) for the cost of one Whip NEV. As a company, WheeGo believes that the vehicles they expect to sell will go to a group of buyers who want to drive an electric vehicle and nothing else, so totally rational transportation decision making won’t necessarily be at work here.

WheeGo president Jeff Boyd told us in a matter-of-fact tone, “We’re not in competition with General Motors or Toyota. We’re just in the game, and it’s better to be in the game rather than sitting around watching. Our business model doesn’t require high volumes to be successful, and we think we’re on to something with the Whip.”

WheeGo hasn’t announced pricing for the high-speed version of the Whip (due next year after crash certification is achieved), but after figuring in a $7500 Federal tax credit, they hope to have an out the door price in the low $20,000 range.

While we can’t claim to know if WheeGo’s expectations are reasonable, our exposure to the Whip did prove that it’s a real car with the potential to satisfy a limited number of American drivers.