WashPost Auto Columnist Hails $19k, 40-mile Range Electric Car As Choice of 'Visionaries'

Although he spent 14 paragraphs fleshing out all the ways that lightning-fast (25 mph) $19,000 retail-priced Wheego Whip LSV is "a tough sell" to readers in the nation's capital region, Washington Post auto columnist Warren Brown concluded his November 1 review by hailing the electric car as a ride "meant for visionaries."

That's right, although the Wheego is a puny two-seater that gets an average 40 miles per full charge, and its range could be "negatively affected by" things like uphill driving, listening to the radio, and cold weather, the Wheego is really important as a multi-thousand dollar way of telling the world you're forward-thinking:

The Wheego Whip LSV has all of the appearance, pricing (with a base manufacturer's suggested retail price of $18,995), and much of the function of a real automobile. But it is not a car meant for the mass market.

Instead, it is an automobile meant for visionaries, for people who can see beyond gasoline because they are keenly aware that gasoline, like the oil from which it comes, is not forever. It is a car for committed geeks, people who know that all-electric vehicles eventually will occupy a significant place among personal-transportation products and who are willing to accept short-term sacrifices and other trade-offs in support of that development.

"Committed geeks" who "accept short-term sacrifices... in support" of the development of an electric car industry, all at the miserly sum of $19,000? 

Where I come from, that's not a visionary. That's a sucker.