Official Coda Electric Car thread

[EdmondLeaf]

Coda Automotive Opens an EV Store http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/09/coda-automotive-2/

 

[SharonaLA]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-autos-coda-sedan-review-20110908,0,2830755.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"2012 electric Coda sedan: Not showy but packed with substance
If cars came in flavors, Coda's debut would be classic vanilla. Overall, the automaker's four-door, five-seater came up well against EVs made by mainstream manufacturers, especially for the price."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-autos-coda-sedan-review-box-20110908,0,7123959.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"2012 Coda sedan at a glance"

 

[SteveInSeattle]

Especially for the price? 5k more than a leaf and they consider the price an advantage?

 

[cdub]

I'm sorry - but this car is DOA. No one is going to buy a car that looks like that. (the interior looks alot better though)

But $44k from a company I've never heard of? Come on? They could have at least made the car sexy like Tesla.

 

[SteveInSeattle]

Here is the best case scenario for CODA:

They finally get the car here sometime soon while the supply of Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus EV's is still very limited and have long waits. CODA can sell to impatient customers who want a car without the wait and to some fleets. Then when Nissan opens North American production and the Mitsubishi, BYD, VW, Tesla and other electrics all come to market, CODA goes bankrupt and folds leaving the customers without parts or warranty.

Worst care scenario:
No one buys them and they go bankrupt almost right away.

 

[SteveInSeattle]

News story in August that CODA was partnering with Great Wall. The Chinese are going to figure out pretty quick that they don't need these start-ups to enter the US market. Look what happened with the never to arrive Mahindra pickup.

 

[Boomer23]

Here is the best case scenario for CODA:

They finally get the car here sometime soon while the supply of Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus EV's is still very limited and have long waits. CODA can sell to impatient customers who want a car without the wait and to some fleets. Then when Nissan opens North American production and the Mitsubishi, BYD, VW, Tesla and other electrics all come to market, CODA goes bankrupt and folds leaving the customers without parts or warranty.

Worst care scenario:
No one buys them and they go bankrupt almost right away.

Even better case for Coda: They sell a few cars, enough to prove concept, then are bought by a late-to-the-game large car company who needs Coda's battery and control technology. Coda ceases to exist as a separate company within one year. Actual decent EV at a realistic price point is released for 2014 model year by said large car company. Coda execs and VC money guys retire to Tahiti.

 

[Herm]

new article on the Coda, and check the photo of the battery.. that thing is massive!, ignore the 12V blurb

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_18883309?IADID=Search-www.timesheraldonline.com-www.timesheraldonline.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i know a few people jumping in line for the Tesla S at $75,000 so ya, Coda will have a market. there is a lot of people whining about getting another 20 miles so there it is.

but for me, i have no regrets. right now, its 8800 miles for $245 or $700 in the Prius...but then again, it would be more in the Prius, since all those short trips done in the Leaf with no impact to performance would have to shift to the Prius which takes its 52 mpg average into the low 30's and less.

so its wait for Coda, pay more or make do with my measly 21 Kw (not 30) range in which after 8 months, i only charge 4-5 days a week and have only had to charge away from home like 4 times...

 

[Herm]

i know a few people jumping in line for the Tesla S at $75,000 so ya, Coda will have a market. there is a lot of people whining about getting another 20 miles so there it is.

Lots of that wine and cheese going around, but there is a legitimate need for those people that have a 70 mile one way commute.. doing that in a Leaf will severely shorten its life, perhaps the Coda with a different chemistry and larger buffer will do better in that case.

More Coda news:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/09/coda-20110920.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"CODA Holdings, a developer of all-electric vehicles and advanced battery systems, announced the successful completion of its Series D preferred investment round, totaling $147 million. (Earlier post.) Oversubscribed from a target of $125 million, CODA expanded the round to further develop its businesses.
This brings the company’s total funding raised to more than $300 million as it begins final preparations to launch its flagship five-passenger CODA sedan in the United States."

 

[TomT]

Replaced with Coda test drive observations below.

 

[Herm]

Can Coda sell green credits to other auto manufacturers in California or CARB does not allow that anymore?

 

[TomT]

So we drove the Coda today.

We were met by a very knowledgeable and exuberant gal named Sophie Nenner. She used to own a store that sold electric bicycles and is now one of four members of Coda's only current showroom in Westfield Century City, CA (424-249-1616). They don't actually sell Coda's at the showroom but they give test drives, answer questions, and dispense information. They will also assist you in placing a refundable $99 reservation but don't press this issue (same basic system and parameters as Leaf's system but they appear to have learned from Nissan's mistakes). You can also make a reservation deposit online if you prefer. It is definitely very low pressure.

Two Coda cars are available for demo drives and there are two G.E. L2 chargers in the demo parking area. In addition there is a Coda car just outside the showroom for people to look over. They also have a roller chassis in the showroom to show off all the components and the battery, and a very nice display of the options and information on all the different aspects of the vehicle. The showroom has a very nice ambiance, feel and air to it. All the cars are pre-production prototypes with actual production slated to start in later October. The first deliveries are slated for the end of the year.

After chatting for about 20 minutes, we went down to look over and drive the car, silver in our case. The battery is forced air cooled/heated with a central duct that runs air down the center of the battery cells and then wraps around the outside of the cells and back as a closed loop system. The thermal management looks good. The charger (which is not liquid cooled) is 6.6 Kw on 240 and 1.3 Kw on 120 and the battery uses Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) technology in 728 cells. It is 333 volts and 36Kw, and weighs about 700 pounds. The motor is 100Kw and 134 hp with 221 ft-pounds of torque. The car weighs about 3,600 pounds. Interestingly, top speed is limited to 80MPH. It has the same battery warranty as the Leaf (and no capacity warranty, also like the Leaf). The navigation and audio system is by Alpine and looks to be MUCH nicer than that on the Leaf. However, the screen is placed too low for my liking, at least in the prototypes. Instrumentation and dash controls, beyond those on the nav/monitor screen are minimal. All the exterior lights are LEDs and include some nice Audi-like LED DRLs..

The trunk is surprisingly large and the rear seats fold down in 60/40 fashion. The 12 volt battery is in the rear, and it has no spare tire and uses a tire inflation system like the Leaf. Since they had some extra range to play with, they went with 17" wheels with wider, beefier tires than the Leaf. The difference was quickly obvious when we later drove it in the twisties and when I did a test panic stop.

The car does not look as mundane in person as in the pictures but it is still bland and uninteresting both inside and out. Pleasant certainly but nothing that will ever turn a head. Fit and finish were not bad for a prototype but I did not like the material they used for the dash which has a dimpled texture and seems to easily attract dust and lint. The fabric (leather is an option) is similar to that in the Leaf but feels higher quality and is darker in color so it is less likely to show dirt. The carpet actually looks and feels like it didn't come from a shaved rat... The front seats were comfortable and more nicely adjustable than the ones in the Leaf, but the rear seat, while wide, was low (it doesn't sit up higher on a perch like that in the Leaf) and my legs were shoved up somewhat even though I am quite short. I would have a hard time warming up to either the exterior or interior styling...

The first thing I noticed once I got in the car was a giant analog SOC gauge to the left of the speedometer, calibrated from 0 to 100 percent (halleluiah!). To the right is a large power/regen gauge, also analog. I noted that we were at 82 percent (the car was not plugged in). The car "starts" with a key and is quite conventional with a center hand brake lever and a large rotary PRND shifter knob on the center console. Someone coming from an ICE would notice no real difference in starting/driving technique.

We drove off and the first thing I noticed was that the car has more creep energy with no accelerator than the Leaf. This calibration may be changed in the production car. I also noticed that the brake system has a very odd calibration, triggering regen very soon in to the travel but requiring about 2/3 of the travel to engage the fiction brakes. This makes the feel when going slow, which has minimal regen, quite different than the feel at speed when you have significant regen (more on this is a bit). Sophie said that the factory was aware of this and was going to recalibrate and adjust the brakes to solve this problem. Once out of the road, it is very quiet though tire noise is more prevalent than in the Leaf (perhaps due to the much more aggressive tires). The suspension felt more buttoned down and damped than the Leaf with less movement over undulations. The steering actually has some real road feel and on-center return, which was a nice change from the Leaf! Overall, I liked the tighter and firmer handling of the Coda but some might feel differently. Through the twisities, the Coda was definitely more throwable than the Leaf and I never got to the point that the tires protested, something that is relatively easy to do in the Leaf.

The car has much more aggressive regen than the Leaf and I easily pinned the regen guage just by taking my foot off the accelerator even at moderate speeds. The deceleration was clearly more substantial with just Regen than on the Leaf. Sohie indicated that the car reaches moderate regen when the pack is down to 92-95 percent, so it is apparently allows regen early in the pack discharge cycle than the Leaf. The "GreenScreen" efficiency and energy monitor was not yet functional on this prototype so I can't give hard, absolute numbers on power or regen. However, based on the mockup I saw, it appears to give more data than what we see on the Leaf Energy screen. I don't know what the acceleration numbers are supposed to be but the car felt slightly more sluggish immediately off the line than the Leaf, but stronger pretty much anywhere else in the speed curve up to about 60. It definitely felt stronger than the Leaf. Again, production calibration may change all this somewhat.

Braking was good but the ABS, like in the Leaf, seemed to be calibrated on the aggressive side. Going over a slight bump while braking moderately, it kicked in fairly hard. I felt only the slightest torque steer at full acceleration. The quoted range is 150 miles but Sophie said that the real world number has been closer to 130.

All in all, based on about 30 minutes of driving, I liked the car more than I thought I would but, no, I would not likely consider it in lieu of the Leaf, particularly at the price. However, time will tell if Coda's bet is right. As the early adopters and tech savvy types take delivery of their BEVs and that market dries up, it may be that the more conventionally styled middle-of-the-road BEVs find a niche with Middle America... That 50 percent bigger pack IS nice though!

I'm sure I forgot to mention a number of things I had intended to, but feel free to ask any questions on those things I may have overlooked. Oh, and I do particularly like one of Coda's taglines which is clearly a play on the Volt: "Cause Range Envy."

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

great write up thanks for the details!

 

[mwalsh]

Boomer and I drove the Coda yesterday. I'm almost hesitant to even give it a mini-review right now - we were in the car for all of around 5 minutes each, and this was also a pre-production vehicle, but one which apparently needed a fair amount more tweaking than the one Tom drove. So, if the folks from Coda are reading this....I'd like to get a more production ready vehicle to review at some point, for at least a couple of hours.

The pluses - I've never personally had a problem with the exterior or interior design. Yes, it's a bit dated on the outside and, yes, some of the interior seems a bit cheap. But I find it acceptable, and I'm sure others needing a pure EV with a range advantage over the LEAF will find it so too.

And it is going to have a range advantage, apparently receiving an EPA rating recently of 110 miles, which we all know to be a generally conservative number. But in any case, we've long been told that LA4 for the Coda would be around 150 miles, and that the engineers were looking for at least 100 miles each and every time you drove a fully charged car, irrespective of driving style, so none of this should come as a surprise. And I think that, for the near term at least, this is going to be one of Coda's biggest selling points. I was also fairly pleased with the notion of an Alpine infotainment system which, although not as sophisticated as the system found in the LEAF, would lend an air of quality to the driving experience. As would the factory option leather seating surfaces.

So now on to the minuses. Again, bear in mind that this was a pre-production vehicle. And also note that the objections Boomer and I raised all seemed to be issues that Coda was aware of and working towards tweaking for the production cars.

The first problem I noticed was in the quality of some of the interior materials, and in particular the dash cover plastics - they were a bit hard and a cheap looking, with an odd change in material sheen between the dash pad and the airbag compartment lid which made the dash look just hideous. But, apparently, this is not going to be the final material used, so don't fret it too much. Boomer also noted a digital dash display that was not illuminated to his satisfaction. I guess I'd say it was dark too, but I don't recall it bothering me as much as it seemed to bother him.

The other major problems with our car were throttle response and braking. Both were pretty awful, with at least an inch of travel on the throttle pedal before anything actually happened, and braking that was almost non-existent for the first two-thirds of pedal travel and soft thereafter. Both of these things are also going to be addressed in production vehicles. However, I offered advice that the product specialist accompanying us should advise his drivers of the brake issue before setting off - in my mind, it was an accident waiting to happen!

Otherwise the car drove pretty well. It seemed to have enough power, though it wasn't as spirited as the LEAF, and regeneration was a nice compromise between the too little offered by the LEAF in D, and the too much (my opinion) offered in the Mini E. Unfortunately, there is no provision for an alternative to D mode in the Coda, so vehicle response isn't customizable for either better economy or a more spirited driving experience.

I'd have to wait for a longer drive in a more finished car before commenting further, but I'd say there is definitely a place for Coda in the market as it stands right now. But monopolizing the range advantage they currently have probably needs to be done while working towards something that will set them apart from manufacturers who are near certain to enter the marketplace during the next 24 months with a Coda killer.

 

[Boomer23]

Boomer and I drove the Coda yesterday.

A very fair driving impression, mwalsh, that captures my thoughts quite well. The dash display that I was trying to see was the Power/Regen gauge, which, like all of the main dash displays is analog with needles, rather than digital, as on the LEAF. All of the dash display gauges were too dim for me to read well. I tried turning up the dash illumination, but it didn't seem to make a difference. Possibly a small issue on the prototype that we were driving. The large center LCD display was quite readable, large and will hopefully be very nice to use once it is integrated with the comfort and convenience controls (Alpine) that mwalsh mentioned. To bring up one more thought about exterior styling, it seems that the body style has been changed slightly from the prototype that I rode in at last October's Alt Car Expo. Comparing my own pictures, the changes appear to be very slight. The product specialist who rode along with us said that they are aware that the styling isn't very exciting, but they feel that the overall package has a lot to offer. I'd have to agree that the larger battery and faster on-board charger do give Coda a marketing hook that they can use right now. I'm sure that they are aware that other makers will have answers to those issues in their upcoming models, though. He said that the second generation Coda will be a ground-up EV design. Below are pictures from last year's and this year's Alt Cars.

Regarding a sales plan, Coda is apparently going to go with a combination of online ordering, tied to a dealer network, rather than the fully online order and delivery idea that they were talking about last year. We were told that they are working with some large dealers in both Northern and Southern California to set up their sales and servicing plans.

Regarding paint quality, one of the product specialists mentioned that the paint and finish on the cars is getting nicer with each updated prototype that she's seen, and the dark grey color on one of the two cars we saw yesterday had a nice finish. I'd have to agree with mwalsh when he said that the EV decal on one of the cars looked rather amateurish and wasn't decorative. Thankfully, that's just a marketing decision and likely won't be an option on production cars. I was surprised to hear that leather seating would be an option. I had assumed that at the stated list price of about $43,900 EDIT $45,800 including delivery charge per the CODA web site, leather would be included. The interior certainly needs that upgrade in material quality to raise the interior impression to something approaching what one would expect at even the after-rebate price point of $34,000 EDIT $35,800 (including California's $2,500 rebate).


This blue car was a prototype at the Oct 2010 Alt Car Expo:

The black and grey cars were prototypes available to drive this year:

 

[mwalsh]

This blue car was a prototype at the Oct 2010 Alt Car Expo:

I think we should nominate Boomer as the site's official photographer!

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

great write ups guy! sounds like the EV market is fleshing out quite nicely. the Coda is not in my price range but Tesla S wannabes will have something to look at. now waiting on what the entry level $20,000 EV will look like!

 

[Boomer23]

I just remembered that the Coda guy who rode with us said that they had recently had car reviewers from Edmunds.com and Road & Track (apparently, it was my favorite engineering editor, Dennis Simanaitis, who likes alternative fuel cars and wrote the recent nice review of three months experience with the LEAF) drive the Coda on some winding roads to get some early driving impressions. So look at those sites or in R&T's paper magazine fairly soon for professional driving impressions.

Oh, and there is no Quick Charge port on the Coda. They cited the lack of an agreed standard in the US....

 

[LindsayNB]

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1068689_2011-la-auto-show-coda-releases-pricing-details-on-2012-sedan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It’s taken a long time arriving, but we finally know how much a 2012 Coda Sedan will cost you to buy: $39,900 before state and federal incentives.
...