Wheego Whip
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With hundreds of thousands of plug-in electric cars from established automakers (and Tesla) on North American roads, most earlier startup carmakers have now largely faded away. One is Wheego Electric Cars, which took the same approach as Coda: Adapt a Chinese-built vehicle with a battery pack and electric running gear installed in the U.S. Wheego is still around, it turns out--unlike the defunct Coda--but it's no longer selling cars. DON'T MISS: 2011 Wheego Whip LiFe Electric Car: First Drive Report (Nov 2010) A statement from Susan Nicholson, Wheego's vice president for electronics, said: We...
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'Not Dead Yet!' Wheego Still Selling Electric Cars
Want proof of how topsy-turvy the electric car industry is? Just look at the last few months: We've seen Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] turning a profit, Coda Automotive filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Fisker Automotive laying motionless, the industry ready to read the last rites. And then there's...
Antony Ingram -
Tough To Be Wheego: Germany Crushes Electric Car From 'Hand-To-Mouth' Startup
It's hard to start a car company. Really, really, really, really, really hard. Which is why little Wheego Electric Cars is having a tough time of it at the moment. Last week, CEO Mike McQuary told industry trade journal Automotive News that the company was "living hand-to-mouth" and that its first...
John Voelcker -
Wheego CEO Says Electric-Car Company Survives “Hand to Mouth”
Atlanta-based Wheego Electric Cars Inc may have just delivered its first all-electric two-seat LiFe, but it is also fighting for its life. Talking candidly to Lindsay Chappell from Automotive News, Wheego CEO Mike McQuary painted a bleak picture of the firm and its future. “My constraint is...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Wheego Electric Vehicle Featured At 2011 Denver Auto Show
In the electric car realm there are many players, a lot of them small. So if we asked you if you had heard of a Wheego, you wouldn’t be alone if your answer was no. That is the fun of auto shows and in the Rocky Mountain region, the 2011 Denver Auto Show is living up to the reputation of...
Jonathan McGrew -
2011 Wheego Whip LiFe Electric Car: First Drive Report
The 2011 Wheego Whip LiFe is a small, two-seat electric car from a startup company you've never heard of with an unusual name. It doesn't have the fit, finish, or driving quality of a 2011 Nissan Leaf or the Japanese-market Mitsubishi "i" we tested two years ago. And it's only got two seats, which...
John Voelcker -
Sometimes we avoid covering certain cars, for good reasons or not. One of those cars is the 2011 Wheego LiFe, a derivative of the 2009 Wheego Whip. Never heard of it? Not surprising. Wheego Electric Cars is a startup electric-car company, in this case selling an electric conversion of a Chinese-made minicar that's pretty clearly a knockoff of a Smart ForTwo. While the Wheego's all-steel body is a foot longer than the diminutive Smart, 4 inches wider, and slightly higher, it's still a small two-seater--and it still resembles a Smart to most people. That may be something of a problem, given...
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Are Carmaker Sites Using Hybrids (Ineptly) As Spam Bait?
We get a lot of spam. Everyone gets a lot of spam. In fact, Symantec says nine of every 10 e-mail messages are spam. But we're scratching our head over a recent spam that uses the topic of hybrid cars, particularly clumsily, to link (via Dubai, no less) to real carmakers' hybrid, diesel, and...
John Voelcker -
RTEV's Wheego Whips Into Dealerships in May
The Wheego Whip is a low speed electric vehicle. There are no estimates of its 0-60 time, because its top speed is 35 miles per hour. Nevertheless, Ruff and Tuff Electric Vehicles (that name is not made up) believes the Wheego will be the next whip of choice for urban drivers. With a maximum range...
Robert Scardino