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Self-Driven
Wheego Technologies is building cars of the future
it changes your alarm to wake you up 30
minutes earlier so you can still make your
itinerary on time,” McQuary said.
For this entrepreneur, lessons
learned at MindSpring will propel
Wheego forward in a very competitive
environment. Namely, how a company
“treats their customers, employees and
investors, provides a real and meaningful
competitive differentiation. That
small smart companies can beat large
corporations. That the best and the
brightest coming out of college want to
work where they can make a difference
and change the world.” 03
By Clare S. Richie
The race to develop self-driving cars
is on with big players like Google, Uber
and Tesla in the game. But a lesser-
known Atlanta based company, Wheego
Technologies, is also poised to compete.
Lead by Mike McQuary, CEO
and former President of MindSpring/
EarthLink, Wheego’s team works on
emerging vehicle technologies in
artificial intelligence/machine
learning, self-driving vehicles,
and connected devices
for home, business and
roadway.
“I want the best and
the brightest to know that
there is a company right
here in Atlanta that is going
to help change the world for
the better,” McQuary said.
Atlanta is the headquarters
for Wheego’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)
development team while all electric vehicle
(EV) and automotive work is done in
Sonoma, CA.
McQuary founded the company in
2008, originally named Wheego Electric
Cars Inc., to produce small EVs. Its
Wheego LiFe sold 400 cars in the U.S.,
but in 2014, Wheego decided to switch
gears and focus on autonomous vehicle
development rather than EV production.
“Continuing to make and
sell EV’s would require a lot
of capital without a defensible
competitive advantage in the
long run,” McQuary explained.
“FFowever, I believe we are
one of the best in the world at
creating an AI platform that
will deliver products to change
people’s lives.”
With this change
came a new name
— Wheego
Technologies,
Inc. — and a team
of industry experts
in AI, networked
communications and
autonomous driving
technologies.
“We have created an
AI platform and our first
product is an Advanced Driver
Assistance System, the highest level of
which is self-driving cars. It is one of the
greatest challenges for AI because of the
complexity of recognizing all of the stimuli
in the environment around a vehicle that
is moving and translating it all into driving
maneuvers that are safe,” McQuary said.
Last fall, the California Department of
Motor Vehicles awarded Wheego a permit
to test its autonomous systems on public
roads in California. It can run tests with a
single vehicle and four drivers.
When will self-driving cars
reach Atlanta? McQuary is
optimistic that the promise of
alleviating traffic congestion
will motivate our city and state
government to support these
technological advances.
“The City of Atlanta is
being very ambitious in their
desire to test this technology
and the state of Georgia
Mike McQuary is also showing early signs
of legislative support for
autonomous cars,” he said.
McQuary is using the same foresight
that led him to create MindSpring (which
later merged with EarthLink) more than
20 years ago. The extremely successful
Internet business had more than 5 million
subscribers and 5,000 employees.
“AI in 20 years will be woven into the
fabric of our lives as the Internet is today.
A simple example: your AI system knows
that you set your alarm
for 6:30 a.m. to
wake and take
your kids to
school and get
to the office
on time. It
realizes on
a particular
day that a
traffic accident
has occurred and
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April 2017 | INtOWn 11