Can an electric vehicle startup with just five employees find success in the cash-intensive, cutthroat automotive world? Maybe, if the five people have deep business experience, a savvy marketing sense and a compelling product.

And that just might be the case with Atlanta-based Wheego, which will get a highway-capable electric car on the road as early as June, ahead of Fisker, Coda, Think, GM and Nissan. If the two-seat lithium-ion battery car passes crash tests, it will be on sale for approximately $32,000 at (the company hopes) 50 dealerships across the country.

I was the first journalist to drive the car, known as the Wheego Whip Life, on the snowy streets of Atlanta. I enjoyed the quiet, squeak-free operation, the ultra-tight turning radius, and the nicely appointed (but not luxurious) interior. Like most EVs, the car features very quick acceleration, but this one also exhibited good regenerative braking response and generally good ergonomics. I experienced some wheelspin, a factor both of the wet roads and the light front end;  the company plans to address this by  moving the heavy battery pack forward.

The Life is a variation on a Chinese-made gasoline car (with a strong styling parallel to the Smart fortwo) called the Noble, which has not been a big success. For that reason, when Wheego CEO Mike McQuary came calling at the Shuanghuan factory two hours outside of Beijing, the management was ready  to make a deal to convert the Noble to battery power.

The cars are assembled in Ontario, California at Hi Performance, and the 28-kilowatt-hour lithium battery packs are made by Flux Power in Escondido, California. The electric motors (60 peak horsepower) are supplied by Leeson, a division of Regal Beloit in Wisconsin.

The Life will has a range of 80 to 90 miles , and a top speed of about 67. It’s a logical extension of the low-speed vehicle (LSV) version of the Whip, which looks much the same but is speed-governed to 35 mph and is not allowed on interstates. Despite these restrictions, Wheego has managed to sell almost 300 LSV Whips—many in the state of Oklahoma, where a combination of generous state and federal tax credits meant that, until January 1, consumers could buy them for an astonishing $2,500.

“Our ambition has never been to be the biggest and sell the most,” McQuary said. “We’re trying to create an affordable, best-in-class electric car, form a community and have a dialogue with our drivers [who already get regular newsletters].” He said the company would be satisfied if it sells 2,000 Wheego Whip Lifes in the first year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtSfqnEUs5M&feature=player_embedded

McQuary is anything but an auto industry lifer.  He has an interesting back story. He joined Mindspring in 1995 and stuck with it through a merger with EarthLink in 1999. The combined entity became the second-largest national ISP behind AOL, with McQuary as president. As he tells it, he left EarthLink after failing to convince the company to start an online music store to service what became Apple’s iPod. McQuary founded Brash Music, an independent label, in 2002.

McQuary brought two of his Mindspring/EarthLink colleagues over to Wheego, a spinoff of Ruff & Tuff Electric Vehicles (which makes plug-in ATVs in the $7,000 to $13,000 range). McQuary also brought in Jeff Boyd as president. Boyd is an experienced auto executive; he is a veteran of Roger Penske’s company and Miles Electric Vehicles, which is launching the Coda battery sedan later this year.

“We are running a very lean operation that allows us to put most of our money into R&D and technology instead of overhead,” Boyd said. “An advantage of our size is that we can be extremely nimble, but the car will have to stand or fall on its own.”

According to Boyd, Wheego will follow the Life with a small four-door crossover SUV in 2011, a utility truck for commercial use and fleets in 2012, and a sports roadster in 2013. The goal, he said, is to keep the price below $30,000 (before tax incentives) for all the models.

Photos: Jim Motavalli

Jim Motavalli is the author of Forward Drive: The Race to Build Clean Cars for the Future, among other books. He has been covering the environmental side of the auto industry for more than a decade, and writes regularly on those topics for the New York Times.

Wheego is a very lean operation, with just five employees. Their new highway-capable electric car can get 90 miles on a charge, will be available this summer, and will sell for $32,000 — but there’s a $7,500 federal tax credit.

Low speed electric vehicle manufacturer Wheego, which recently debuted its Whip EV in dealers across the country, is showcasing at the Washington Auto Show this week a prototype of a “full-speed version” of the Whip. It is called the Whip LiFe and it is said it will price around $32,000 before tax credits and should be available by mid-year. The Whip LiFe, which Autoblog Green covered the public unveiling of, will run on lithium-ion batteries. It is projected to go up to 100 miles on a full charge, taking up to eight hours to charge via a standard wall outlet. A snap shot Autoblog Green caught of vehicle specs shows the Whip LiFe will be capable of a maximum speed of 65 MPH and driven by a brushless electric motor with a peak horsepower of 60 and torque of 95 ft. lbs. It will hold two passengers, has front wheel drive, a variety of interior cabin comforts, five different exterior colors and a mix of standard safety features. It is definitely a small car, with a length of slightly under 10 feet, a width of around 5.3 feet and a height of 5.25 feet.

  image via Autoblog Green

Wheego was founded by computer guru Mike McQuary, former president of EarthLink. As we were driving around New York City recently in a bright blue Whip, McQuary told me he was inspired to start his company after seeing the documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car”, about GM’s original Saturn EV-1 program.

“I’m not a car guy as much as a technology entrepreneur,” he said, and an admitted “tree hugger.” So he decided to mate his software expertise with unibody construction.

The Wheego Whip is classified as an NEV — Neighborhood Electric Vehicle — limited to city streets and country roads rated not above 35 mph, and it has a 55-mile range before recharging. McQuary has raised $2.5 million for crash testing that will boost the car’s legal limits to highway speeds, and for retooling the battery pack to lithium-iron phosphate, which is not quite as powerful (nor as expensive) as lithium-ion batteries that help power hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius, 2010 Mercedes-Benz S400 Hybrid sedan and the all-electric version of the R8 sports car recently announced by Audi.

A highway capable Whip — or FSV for Full Speed Version — will have a 100-mile range between recharging that takes 8-10 hours.

My drive time showed the Whip to have adequate acceleration, stability in turns, spot-on braking thanks to regenerative four-wheel disc brakes and a totally silent ignition start-up and operation. Oh, yes, when you close the doors, it sounds like a “real” car door, not a toy. There’s enough cargo space to fit a couple of medium-size suitcases, plus air conditioning and power windows, too.

McQuary recently announced a “trade-up” program, under which buyers of the low-speed NEV Whip can trade-up to the full-power FSV model, expected in 2010, and receive a trade-up credit of 50 percent of the original price. With a second round of federal and state tax credits, that could bring the price of the trade-up all the way down to $3,000. “We want to take care of our pioneering customers,” he said.

McQuary calls the Whip a “United Nations car”, with batteries from Canada, body and chassis from China, motor made in Wisconsin, dashboard components from Ohio, the software from Boston and company headquarters in Atlanta.

He is realistic about Whip’s marketability. “This is not the car to load up the kids for grandma’s” or a long family vacation, but it’s a second car for daily commuting and errands close to home. It’s also an ideal vehicle for teens and college students — cute, cutting-edge technology, inexpensive to buy, operate and maintain, with MP3 connection and Bluetooth in the upgrade model, plus a safety feature important to any parent: “It can’t go over 80 mph,” he told me.

The Whip is assembled in Ontario, Calif., but McQuary wants to build factories in the Midwest and East, “to save distribution costs.” For distribution and other Whip information visit wheego.net.

McQuary hopes to sell 5,000 Whips in 2010. “If the big guys sell less than 100,000 of a model after four years of research and development, they consider it a flop,” he said, but for a company the size of Wheego, that number would be a mega-volt success.

The road to auto industry electrification is littered with start-up companies that have aspirations of taking the electric vehicle industry by storm. Some of these companies are paving the way, and others are making mistakes and learning some difficult lessons. Atlanta-based start-up Wheego Electric Cars has taken the challenges of companies that have gone before it and used the lessons learned to create a better product. So what makes Wheego stand out?

 Wheego’s first vehicle, the Whip, is available now in a network of 16 dealers across the country – including two in Michigan. The company expects to expand the dealership network to include 70 dealers during 2010. Like many other electric vehicles hitting the market, the Whip is a low-speed vehicle (also sometimes referred to as a neighborhood electric vehicle, these are only capable of reaching a top speed of about 35 mph). The similarity ends there. Most LSVs are built on a golf-cart platform, which of course means they do not meet automotive safety standards. The Wheego Whip, however, is designed and built on a car platform. The chassis is based on that of the Shuanghuan Noble. Wheego is currently at work on a highway version of the Whip that will feature a lithium-ion battery. The highway version will be capable of speeds of up to 78 mph with a travel range of 80 miles between charges.

Wheego’s initial target is to sell between 500 and 1,000 Whips (the LSV version) in the first year. Given that it is somewhat pricey for the limited functionality it offers, that sales goal might be a stretch. The highway version, on the other hand, could offer greater sales potential. It will be interesting to watch as the company develops and prepares to launch the highway version. Will they be able to pull this off according to their schedule? Or will we be reading at this time next year that Wheego’s aggressive launch plans have hit a snag resulting in delays? Given that that vehicle platform is solid and technology is not a limiting factor for the company, odds are they might just make it. 

Santa Claus to Unveil New ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations on December 10th

 The City of Pleasant Hill announced today that Santa Claus will make a guest appearance in his plug-in Prius as he stops by to charge up at Pleasant Hill City Hall. Pleasant Hill has become the fourth Bay Area city to deploy the ChargePoint® Networked Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles (EV). Manufactured by Coulomb Technologies, the charging stations will be made operational in the city during a special holiday season unveiling ceremony on December 10, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. at the City Hall Parking Lot, 100 Gregory Lane.

Coulomb Technologies, Inc.
Anne Smith, 408-313-8089
anne@annesmithcommunications.com

Wheego, one of the many electric car manufacturers striving to get their no-emissions electric vehicle into the hands of consumers, recently announced a sort of “dealer network” of locations around the United States in which to sell its first product. The Whip, as it is being called, should now be on sale via some of these independent dealers now.

The auto maker said it had secured 16 locations across the country in which to sell its Whip. Many of them also sell other electric vehicles, so those locations should give consumers a good idea of the variety of selection coming to market. Wheego continues to shop around its EV to other dealerships as well, taking a road show this month and next through the southern part of the country.

The current electric Wheego Whip is classified as being a low speed vehicle, meaning it can drive on roads with speed limits less than 35 MPH. It is said to have interior features comparable to other subcompact cars on the market, seating two people and running off of “sealed lead acid” batteries which can be charged from a regular AC outlet. A “full speed” Whip is expected sometime in 2010.

ITHACA — The Pritchard family has always been proud of its past. As owners of Ithaca’s oldest car dealership, they’ve been selling cars to Ithaca motorists for five generations.

Now they are embracing the future, and they believe the future is electric.

William T. Pritchard Inc., of 304 S. Cayuga St., is the first dealership in the state to stock the Whip, an all-electric low-speed vehicle manufactured by a California company called Wheego.

The Pritchards took stock of the two-seat compact car last week, and Dan Pritchard has been using it to whip around town on errands and show off its smooth, noiseless ride.

Interest in the little red novelty has been high, he said, although no orders have been placed yet.

With a speed limit of 25 mph and a power charge that will last for about 40 miles, the vehicle is meant to be used solely for short distances, driven on roads with posted speed limits of 35 mph or less.

But its 40 horsepower motor is more powerful than many electric vehicles on the market, and a bit bigger than their traditional golf-cart sized frames. At 118.5 inches long, 63 inches wide and 63 inches high, it is surprisingly roomy inside, with space for a large suitcase in the back.

There is a socket where you would expect the gas tank to be, and a cord that plugs into any household 120-volt electrical socket. It takes about eight hours to fully charge the 12 sealed lead-acid 8-volt batteries, and Pritchard said Wheego the company encourages “opportunity charging,” frequent short-term charges whenever you find yourself parked near a plug.

The car is completely uncluttered beneath the hood, and dashboard controls are simple, with just three displays — a power charge indicator, a speed indicator, and an “ecometer” comprising five LED lights that let you know when you are driving most efficiently.

The limit on speed does force the driver to rethink where they are going and how they will get there, but Pritchard pointed out that it is possible for a West Hill resident to use the car to get to work at Cornell University, do the weekly shopping at Wegmans and visit the Farmer’s Market on weekends. Pritchard said he is in talks with Cornell, Ithaca College and the City of Ithaca about the possibility of incorporating it into their fleets.

He said the low speeds mean low wear and tear on brakes and other parts, and subsequently low maintenance costs. The only fluids to be filled are for the brakes and windshield wipers, so there are no oil change or gas bills to be paid.

He estimates the cost to power the car to be 3 cents per mile. At current gas prices of nearly $3 per gallon, even a relatively efficient gasoline car that gets 30 miles per gallon costs 10 cents per mile.

A full-speed Wheego Whip is expected next summer, with lithium ion batteries that will give it the ability to travel at 60 mph and get 80 miles on a single charge. The company will be offering a trade-up program for those wishing to swap models and willing to pay a price differential to do so.

One of the incentives to buy now, however, is a $7,500 federal tax credit, only guaranteed until the end of the year, which would bring the price of the low-speed vehicle to $12,495.

“If you are really into taking care of the environment and saving some money, it’s still not a bad deal,” he said.

Pritchard said he embraced the product after seeking ways to supplement stock when Chrysler announced in May that it would be withdrawing the dealership from its franchise as part of bankruptcy restructuring. Despite the pull-out, he said business is going well, and the change actually gave his used car sales a boost as people realized they stocked and serviced more than just Chrysler products.

“We are really excited about this,” Pritchard added. “The whole future seems to be going this way.”

I wrote much of this post, or I should say I dictated it into my digital recorder, while riding in an electric car. A colleague of mine, Stephen Currie, is the first person in Atlanta to own a Wheego electric car and I am one of his first passengers.

 The ride is thrilling for its, well……lack of thrill. I expected to feel as though I was riding in a golf cart but riding in this Wheego electric car is like riding in any other car. The top speed is supposed to be 25 mph but the speedometer reads 35, and as any of you that have driven in Atlanta know, if we weren’t keeping up with traffic the drivers behind us would let us know. My seat is roomy and comfortable, and I am not in fear of an accident; or at least I have no more fear than any sane person would have driving in Atlanta. I am impressed.

Wheegos sell for about $20,000 and Stephen got a $7,500 tax credit, making the vehicle a very logical solution for in-city driving. The current model Wheego is not allowed on highways so Currie has another car for that.

The Wheego looks a lot like a SmartCar, which are very popular in Atlanta. The difference is a decal of an electric cord and an electric outlet where a gas tank would normally be located.

Currie is by no measure an over the top global warmist. He is bothered by our nation’s dependence on foreign oil so he is making a statement. He is also making a statement about practical, cost-effective transportation to meet his lifestyle. The folks at Wheego make a convincing case that this car will meet the needs of people that do most of their driving in town. If I understand Wheego’s strategy correctly, they hope to add a model suitable for highway driving once they have a base of early adopters like Currie.

The tax credit means that the Wheego is not fully a free market product which would be my preference, but given all the benefits oil companies and traditional automakers receive from our government, I have no issue with a tax credit for electric cars.

By the way, if a few guys can get this car produced and onto the market, why in the !*&!**#! did we bailout GM?

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