Following the demise of Aptera and Bright Automotive, it’s time to give a good hard look at Wheego Electric Cars. It’s Wheego, definitely the tiniest and least well-capitalized of the three, that’s still ticking — and a big reason for that is its small-is-beautiful philosophy.  Wheego, based in Atlanta, makes the two-passenger LiFe, a Smart-sized car sourced from China, with electric drivetrain and batteries installed in California. That’s the same basic formula as the much higher-profile Coda, the first of which began rolling off the assembly line in Benicia, Calif., on Monday.  The LiFe, which I’ve driven in California and Atlanta, isn’t going to blow anybody away with performance or high-tech add-ons. Its 30-kilowatt-hour lithium battery pack is coupled to a 60-horsepower electric motor. Top speed is 65 mph, and you get there eventually. The air-conditioning is optional. It’s a commuter car, priced at $32,995.  Mike McQuary, the ex-Internet entrepreneur and music business maven who heads the company.  Wheego is on the market, though not in a big way: The company has built precisely 36 cars since the first one rolled out for Earth Day 2011, and has sold something like 34 of them, says Mike McQuary (right), the ex-Internet entrepreneur and music business maven who heads the company. “Our dealers [I count 27, from Tokyo to Arundel, Maine] are clamoring for cars,” he told me. “Three quarters of our dealers have never had a car, but they’re being very patient with our strategy.” And that strategy has been to build cars only when it gets the money — whether through venture capital or selling out its inventory.  The market for two-seat cars is pretty limited, but Wheego is planning to add a crossover vehicle chosen from among three contending Chinese manufacturers. It won’t appear tomorrow — getting the new car through crash testing will probably take two years.  I gotta say that Wheego is playing it smart, given that the market is moving slowly anyway.  The company has precisely 7.5 employees (including McQuary), up from five the last time I asked. Both Aptera and Bright expended a lot of resources reaching for the brass ring — Department of Energy Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) funding. The Department of Energy manages a pot of $25 billion and has spent only $8 billion of it (Tesla and Fisker were both recipients, with more than $500 million each).
Lots of other electric car companies are flashier, but this China/California hybrid has a hyper-cautious strategy that makes sense as the electric vehicle market gets off to a slow start.