Another electric car maker aims for California market
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Add Coda Automotive to the list of companies that want to sell electric cars in California.
The Santa Monica-based company said today that it plans to begin selling a mid-size, all-electric sedan called — what else? — the Coda in California by the fall of 2010.
Built in China by state-owned automaker Hafei, the car will sell for $45,000 and have a range of 90-100 miles on a single charge.
The list price is cheaper than the $57,400 Model S sedan that Tesla Motors Inc. is developing, although the Model S is designed to travel up to 160 miles per charge (higher-priced versions will have greater range) and is slated to be built in California. (Tesla has already delivered about 500 of its $109,000 Roadster sports cars.)
Buyers of both the Coda and the Model S would be eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit.
Coda Chief Executive Kevin Czinger said he hoped his car’s lower price would help put an electric vehicle within reach of more buyers.
“The Coda sedan is an all-electric vehicle for everyone,” Czinger said.
The car will be powered by a 330-volt lithium-ion battery produced by Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Co. Coda said it has applied for U.S. government funding to build a battery plant in the U.S. in partnership with an American battery company.
Besides its unconventional power source, one of the Coda’s most unusual features is how strikingly ordinary it looks. It bears more than a passing resemblance to a Toyota Corolla or a Hyundai Sonata.
Part of that is due to the fact that the car is based on an existing Chinese car design. But Coda also made a conscious decision to avoid the flashy, “look at me” appearance that seems to characterize most advanced-powertrain designs.
In focus groups, “we found that people who had gas-powered vehicles brought up time and time again that they were interested in alternative options, but that the vehicles always look so weird,” Coda Marketing Director Kara Saltness said.
The Coda is already undergoing safety testing and the company hopes to have 200 in the hands of commercial test fleets in the U.S. by the middle of next year. Cars will be sold directly to the general public through the company’s website. It will begin taking orders in the fall and hopes to sell 2,700 cars in 2010.
No Chinese-built cars are currently sold in the U.S., and Coda hopes to overcome concerns about made-in-China quality by stressing its engineering partnership with Porsche and the fact that American engineers will be at the Hafei assembly plant overseeing production.
“This is a safe car and we will be responsible in the end for the quality,” Czinger said.
Coda is one of several companies besides Tesla vying to bring electric cars or plug-in hybrid vehicles to market, including big players like General Motors, Ford, Nissan and Toyota and smaller fry like Fisker Automotive.
Coda was founded by entrepreneur Miles Rubin, known for the Miles Electric Vehicles brand of low-speed electric fleet vehicles.
-- Martin Zimmerman